
\; : .. : ' 



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LIBRARY OF ^CONGR ESS. 

(Ujap, __M @op^rig|i !f u* 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ilauretCrotDtxeD tUtters* 



The Best Letters of Lord Chesterfield. 

The Best Letters of Madame de Sevigne. 

The Best Letters of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu. 

The Best Letters of Horace Walpole. 

The Best Letters of Charles Lamb. 

The Best Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 



OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. 



UNIFORM IN STYLE. PRICE, $1.00 PER VOLUME. 



THE BEST LETTERS 

OF . 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



lEitteii iottfj an ftntrafcuctfon 

BY 

SHIRLEY CARTER HUGHSON 




CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

1892 



I 



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Copyright 
By A. C. McClurg and Co. 

a. d. 1892 






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PREFACE. 



THE year 1892 marks the one hundredth anni- 
versary of the birth of the poet Shelley, and 
the English literary world has celebrated it in fitting 
manner. A splendid marble memorial has been 
erected to perpetuate his name within the precincts 
of the ancient seat of learning that once spurned him 
from her walls, and the Shelley Society has made the 
year the most memorable in its annals by its tributes 
to his genius. Bound as she is by all the ties of 
blood, of speech, and of tradition to the mother 
country, America holds the literature of England as 
somewhat of her own, and will not permit this occa- 
sion to pass unnoticed. Not that this little /volume 
for a moment claims the distinction of being a 
memorial one, but it has occurred to the editor that 
no more appropriate time than the present could be 
chosen at which to make an effort to arouse among 
American readers generally an interest in the prose 
writings of one who is chiefly known in the field of 
poetry. 

In the preparation of this collection chief regard 
has been had to the literary excellence of the letters, 
without neglecting, however, their biographical value. 
All giving pictures of his time, and especially those 



VI PREFACE. 

which admit us into the inner circle of that distin- 
guished coterie of English exiles with which Shelley 
was associated in Italy, are carefully retained. The 
object has been to give the "Best Letters" of the 
poet, and at the same time to make the volume a 
complete and ready work of reference for those who 
might desire to consult Shelley's records of his own 
life, and the lives of his poet-friends. Shelley was not 
a voluminous letter writer, and the present edition 
contains very nearly all that he left with the excep- 
tion of the letters of his younger and more immature 
years. The editor is indebted to Professor Dowden's 
Life of Shelley for a number of letters which have 
never before appeared in any collection. 

Some of the notes contributed to early editions by 
Mrs. Shelley, Lady Shelley, and Peacock have been 
retained, and are designated by their initials, — M. S., 
L. S., and T. L. P., respectively. For the other notes 
the present editor is responsible. 

. S. C. H. 

September, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION n 

LETTER 

I. To Leigh Hunt , . . . , 29 

II. To William Godwin 30 

III. To William Godwin 33 

IV. To William Godwin .....,....,, 36 
V. To Thomas Hookham, Esq. . 38 

VI. To Hookham v ............ . 40 

VII. To Hookham . 42 

VIII. To Hookham . . . . . 43 

IX. To Thomas Jefferson Hogg . ........ 43 

X. To Mary Shelley 45 

XI. To Mary Shelley . . 47 

XII. To Mary Shelley 48 

XIII. To Thomas Jefferson Hogg 49 

XIV. To William Godwin 50 

XV. To Thomas Love Peacock . 52 

XVI. To Thomas Love Peacock = . 54 

XVII. To Thomas Love Peacock 67 

XVIII. To Thomas L. Peacock , 71 

XIX. To Leigh Hunt .,...., 82 

XX. To Mary Shelley 84 

XXI. To William Godwin , 85 

XXII. To William Godwin $6 

XXIII. To Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Hunt $7 

XXIV. To a Publisher SS 

XXV. To William Godwin 90 



Vlll 



CONTENTS, 



LETTER PAGE 

XXVI. To William Godwin . 93 

XXVII. To Charles Oilier 95 

XXVIII. To Leigh Hunt ....',. 99 

XXIX. To T. L, Peacock ioo 

XXX. To T. L. Peacock 102 

XXXI. To Horace Smith I0 8 

XXXII, To T. L. Peacock i 0Q 

XXXIII. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne ....... in 

XXXIV. To William Godwin 113 

XXXV. To T. L. Peacock 115 

XXXVI. To T. L. Peacock .......... 119 

XXXVII, To Mary Shelley 122 

XXXVIII. To Mary Shelley 126 

XXXIX. To Mary Shelley 130 

XL. To T. L. Peacock 131 

XLL To T. L. Peacock . . . 135 

XLII. To T. L. Peacock .......... 139 

XLIII. To T. L. Peacock 147 

XLIV. To T. L. Peacock 151 

XLV. To T. L. Peacock . , 163 

XLVI. To T. L, Peacock . . 172 

XLVII. To T. L. Peacock .......... 180 

XLVIII. To T. L. Peacock 190 

XLIX. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne 194 

L. To T. L. Peacock 196 

LI. To T. L. Peacock 198 

LII. To T. L, Peacock 199 

LIIL To Leigh Hunt 202 

LIV. To T. L, Peacock 204 

LV. To Leigh Hunt ,207 

LVI. To C. Oilier 209 

LVTI. To T. L. Peacock 212 

LVIII. To T. L. Peacock 213 

LIX, To Leigh Hunt ,215 

LX. To Mrs. Gisborne , 217 

LXI. To C. Oilier 220 

LXII. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne 222 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



LETTER PAGE 

LXIII. To Leigh Hunt 223 

LX1V. To Mrs. Gisborne , 224 

LXV. To John Gisborne , . . . . 225 

LXVI. To Leigh Hunt 227 

LXVII. To Leigh Hunt .229 

LXVIII. To Mr. Oilier . . 231 

LXIX. To C. Oilier ....... 233 

LXX. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne 235 

LXXI. To C. Oilier , .236 

LXXII. To C. Oilier 237 

LXXIII. To T. L. Peacock 238 

LXXIV. To John Gisborne 240 

LXXV. To T L. Peacock .......... 242 

LXXVI. To Mary Shelley 244 

LXXVII. To Mary Shelley 246 

LXXVIII. To Claire Clairmont 247 

LXX IX. To James Oilier 249 

LXXX. To T. L. Peacock 250 

LXXXI. To John Gisborne 252 

LXXXII. To Claire Clairmont 253 

LXXXIII. To T. L. Peacock 255 

LXXXIV. To C.Ollier . 257 

LXXXV. To Claire Clairmont 259 

LXXXVI. To C.Ollier t . . 262 

LXXXVII. To T. L. Peacock 264 

LXXXVIII. To Mr, and Mrs. Gisborne 266 

LXXXIX. To C Oilier 267 

XC To John Gisborne 26S 

XCI. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne ....... 269 

XCII. To Claire Clairmont , . . 270 

XCIII. To the Editor of the " Quarterly Review " . . 271 

XCIV. To a Lady 274 

XCV. To Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne 275 

XCVI. To Mrs. Shelley 276 

XCVII. To Mary Shelley 278 

XCVIII. To Mary Shelley 279 

XCJX. To Mary Shelley 281 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER PAGE 

C. To T, L. Peacock 288 

CI. To Mary Shelley 290 

CII. To Mary Shelley 297 

CIII, To Mary Shelley . . 293 

CIV, To Leigh Hunt 298 

CV. To Horace Smith 301 

CVI. To C. Oilier 303 

CVII. To John Gisborne . . . . 307 

CV1II. To C.Ollier 310 

CIX. To Joseph Severn 311 

CX. To Claire Clairmont » 312 

CXI. To Claire Clairmont 313 

CXII. To T, L. Peacock 315 

CXIII. To Horace Smith 317 

CXIV. To John Gisborne 319 

CXV, To Horace Smith 322 

CXVI. To Horace Smith 323 

CXVII. To Horace Smith 324 

CXVIII. To Mrs. E. E. Williams 325 

CXIX. To Mary Shelley 326 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE year before his death Shelley wrote in his noble 
"Defense of Poetry": " The jury which sits in 
judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, 
must be composed of his peers ; it must be empanelled 
by Time from the selectest of the wise of many genera- 
tions." To those who know the life and character of 
this remarkable genius, these words have a strange per- 
sonal ring. He could not have applied them to his con- 
temporaries save in a_ few instances. Byron, Scott, 
Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, his most famous co- 
workers in the realm of the Muses, heard the trump of 
fame while they were yet in the vigor of their intellect- 
ual youth. Shelley, on the other hand, was neglected 
by one half the world, and hated by the other half. Full 
of high hopes of elevating mankind, and believing 
poetry to be the loftiest mode of expression of the high- 
est things, he sought to lure the world to nobler achieve- 
ment by his sweetest strains. But the world turned a 
deaf ear to him, or denounced his music as the inspira- 
tion of an evil genius. Despite, however, the scorn of 
society, he felt that he might yet do something to raise 
his fellow-man, and, hoping against hope, he went forth 
as what Heine might have called " A brave soldier in 
the Liberation War of humanity." And he has been 
tried by the jury of which he spoke. " The selectest of 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

the wise " of these latter days have rendered their ver- 
dict, and his genius has been vindicated. Probably no 
man so neglected by his own generation has been ac- 
corded so much praise and honor in after times, and it 
has been all in spite of Shelley himself. Death released 
his genius from its strange and unnatural surroundings, 
and when considered alone, apart from the man, there 
could be no doubt as to the position it should be ac- 
corded. 

Just one hundred years ago Percy Bysshe Shelley was 
born in Sussex, England, and, as an eldest son, he was the 
heir presumptive to one of the richest baronetcies in that 
part of the kingdom. He was born in " the purple of the 
English Squirearchy," but his inherited honors received 
but little consideration at his hands. Gifted with a most 
untamable spirit of liberty, he had not attained his ma- 
jority before he came to hate, with a hatred that lasted 
until the end, the empty show and paraphernalia of no- 
bility. Filled with a sense of the equality of man, he 
despised the sentiment which arbitrarily placed one 
class above another, and which made one man better 
than his fellow by accident of birth. Living as he did 
in an age that boasted but little liberality of thought, it 
is not surprising that he met with scant sympathy. The 
terrors of the French Revolution were still fresh in the 
minds of men, and the world had not yet recovered from 
its first paroxysm of horror at the terrible school of free 
thought that was born of that period. But Shelley did 
not share this feeling of horror. He himself was of that 
French school, and he was ready to receive on their 
supposed merits any new ideas that might be presented. 
Holding such views, born in a period of anarchy and 
blood, and nurtured under skies red with the glare of 
Europe T s blazing thrones, it is not surprising that he, 
the " Child of the Revolution," should have become an 
apostle of the new school, a high priest of iconoclasm. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

In his desire to subvert the old order of things, his 
boundless enthusiasm spared nothing. Whatever merits 
an institution might have in itself, the fact that it was a 
part of the ancient economy of social or political life 
was sufficient for him to condemn it, and denounce it as 
a pernicious obstacle to the advancement of mankind. 
He knew nothing of discrimination, and just here lay 
the mistake which rendered his efforts of no avail, or, as 
it has been touchingly expressed, made him " a beautiful 
and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous 
wings in vain." * 

Shelley's youth was no less turbulent than his latter 
years. It seemed, indeed, that from his very infancy 
some strange destiny hung over him, forcing him into 
bitter opposition to everything with which he should 
have been identified. A brief and unhappy course at 
Eton was followed by a still briefer and more unfortu- 
nate residence at Oxford. As a student, he rebelled 
against the arbitrary curriculum of studies, and sought 
sources of knowledge which at that day were unknown 
to the ordinary undergraduate at Oxford, and known to 
the learned authorities only to be condemned in a man- 
ner more than characteristic of the bigoted age. Shel- 
ley, even as a boy, was a thinker, and his study of the 
French philosophical writers soon bore fruit. He had 
not been a member of the University six months before 
the ancient and orthodox seat of learning was startled 
by an anonymous publication — a mere leaflet — enti- 
tled " The Necessity of Atheism," which was scattered 
through the colleges. Shelley made no secret of the 
fact that he was the author of the remarkable work, 
and on Lady Day, 181 1, he was summoned before the 
authorities and required to answer to certain peremptory 

1 Matthew Arnold concludes his essay on Shelley with this 
paraphrase of Joubert's comment on Plato. 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

questions regarding his connection with it. The spirit 
of rebellion against anything like coercion was fired in 
a moment, and he defiantly refused to answer. Without 
any further formality, he was served with a notice of ex- 
pulsion, which had been previously drawn up in antici- 
pation of his refusal to submit to a formal examination 
regarding his act. 

Driven from Oxford, Shelley sought a residence in 
London, and from there proceeded to open negotiations 
with his father, with whom he had never been on good 
terms, but in this business he had to deal with a Phi- 
listine of a school as ancient as Goliath himself. Mr. 
Timothy Shelley heard of his son's performance with a 
horror that was indeed to be expected ; but what does 
surprise us is that never once did the stiff-necked old 
English gentleman seek to win his erring son from his 
error by the influence of that love which must have 
come off victor in every case where he was concerned. 
But he was a stern parent of the most pronounced 
eighteenth century type, and his only thought was to 
whip the rebellious boy back into the right path. Tact- 
less almost to a degree of brutality, and bound hand 
and foot by conventions which even the conservative 
people of that day were beginning to disregard, it is not 
surprising that his negotiations with his son ended in a 
breach which was never healed, and that Shelley, at the 
age of nineteen, found himself thrown on the world, and 
in a position where he could with some color of justice 
consider himself a persecuted man. 

To Shelley's residence in London the keenest interest 
attaches, as it was now that he met with one whose sad 
career was to bring a strange tragedy into his life. His 
sudden marriage with Harriet Westbrook, their brief 
and checkered life together, their estrangement and 
separation, are questions too lengthy and vexed to be 
discussed in the narrow compass of this essay. The 



INTRO D UCTION. 1 5 

immediate causes of their separation have never been 
accurately known, and probably never will be. The 
Shelley family promised them to the world, but Pro- 
fessor Dowden's Life of Shelley — two great volumes 
prepared under family auspices — have appeared, and 
the world is no wiser than before. 

During the spring of 1813, while Shelley was yet liv- 
ing happily with Harriet, he became one of a little 
coterie of free-thinkers who attached themselves to 
William Godwin, the author of the famous work on 
" Political Justice." Some time previous Shelley had 
become acquainted with Godwin through a correspond- 
ence in which he invited the old philosopher of Skinner 
Street to become his guide in the devious paths of po- 
litical and social philosophy. From this their mutual 
interest increased until now the young poet had become 
one of the most constant attendants on the frequent 
seances to which only the favored few were admitted. 
From this period date many of those friendships which 
exerted so much influence on Shelley's after life. It 
was here that he met Peacock, to whom his finest letters 
were addressed, and it was here, too, that he met Mary 
Godwin, the Mary who in after years filled so great a 
part of his life, — that daughter of illustrious parentage, 
who, while she brought Shelley the first and only hap 
piness he knew, brought also into his life a dark tragedy, 
the only blot that has ever stained his fame. 

Early in 1814 came the final break with Harriet, and 
a few weeks later he fled to the Continent with Mary, to 
escape the wrath of Godwin, who, although he was an 
opponent of marriage, was too weak to advance his 
theories into practice in the case of his daughter. With 
the birth of her second child, Harriet hoped for a recon- 
ciliation, but it was too late. Shelley saw her but once 
again, and they then parted forever. He went out into 
life, his heart filled with high hopes and aspiring am- 



1 6 INTR OD UCTION. 

bitions; Harriet went back to her old friends, to drag 
out a heart-broken existence, until, on a dark November 
night two years later, the waters of the Serpentine 
closed over her, shutting out from life one whose career 
we must contemplate with infinite pity. 

The following month Shelley was married to Mary 
Godwin, and immediately set about to recover his chil- 
dren by a suit in Chancery, The notes to " Queen 
Mab " were entered as evidence to prove that he was 
riot a proper person to rear his own offspring, and Lord 
Eldon rendered a decision to that effect. The children 
were placed in charge of a guardian, and the severest 
restrictions placed on their father's visits to them. 

During all this time Shelley had not thought of Italy 
as a permanent residence. Although he hated the ex- 
isting institutions of his country with all the strength of 
his moral nature, still for England itself he had a love 
which reminds us of the great love the exiled Heine 
bore his down-trodden Fatherland, and it was not until 
after the chancery suit that he thought of seeking free- 
dom and peace in that " paradise of exiles." At this 
time he was living at Great Marlowe on the Thames. 
There he had the quiet of home, and the communion of 
faithful and devoted friends. Leigh Hunt, Peacock, and 
Horace Smith were his constant companions ; there he 
met Keats, his "Adonais " ; and there he formed those 
lasting friendships which infused so much of happiness 
into his life. There, too, Shelley wrote. With his 
ardent devotion to nature, most of his work was done 
out of doors, under the spreading trees, in the fields 
with only the blue English summer sky over him, or 
while floating in some frail boat in the shadow of the 
willows which bordered the picturesque Thames. 

But these delightful, almost idyllic surroundings, could 
not and did not bring happiness to Shelley. " The 
Chancellor had said some words," wrote Mrs. Shelley, 



INTRO D UCTION. I J 

" that seemed to intimate that Shelley would not be per- 
mitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment 
he feared that our infant son would be torn from us." 
This fear so haunted him that it soon became evident 
that he could have no happiness in England, and by the 
spring of 1818 he had fully determined to seek a home 
in Italy. April found him with his family at Milan, and 
from there he went from point to point, which inclina- 
tion or his search after health prompted him to visit. 
For four years — " years," says Symonds, " filled with 
music that will sound as long as English lasts " — Shel- 
ley and Mary followed a series of delightful and uncer- 
tain wanderings through Italy. They had no settled 
abiding-place. All Italy was their home. Shelley 
wished for no roof save "the vault of blue Italian 
day"; the purple-peaked Apennines were the only walls 
and towers he cared to have above him; the Muses were 
his Lares and Penates, and their shrines he found every- 
where, — in the flowered valleys, up the snowy moun- 
tain slopes, and on the bosom of the deep sea he loved 
so much. Wherever beauty was, there was his home. 
Like the ancient poets he found inspiration in all things ; 
for him every fountain had its Nereid, every wood its 
nymph, and every mountain side its musical Pan. The 
riotous melody of Satyrs he heard in every wind, and 
the great forests were like vast ^Eolian harps upon 
which the powers of the air played the divinest music 
of nature. All the universe was filled with associations 
as dear to him as any that ever clustered around an 
humble hearthstone, or an ancestral hall. 

But we will not linger over these Italian years. The 
only true account of them — and the most beautiful 
account that could ever be written — is found in his 
letters. So we will leave him to tell the story of his 
own life until we reach the last days. There we will 
pause. 

2 



1 8 INTRODUCTION. 

It was July, 1822. Lured by the sea whose music 
ever had so subtle an influence on his spirit, Shelley had 
found his way to Casa Magni, a little white stone cot- 
tage on the Bay of Spezia, so near the water that in 
times of storm, wrote Mrs. Shelley, " we almost fancied 
ourselves on board ship." Here, with Mary, Trelawny, 
Byron, Edward Williams, and Williams's wife — the 
" Jane " of so many of his short poems — Shelley passed 
some Elysian days. The water he loved so much was 
at his feet, the breath of the warm south was pulsing 
over the Mediterranean ; on the east, across the blue 
gulf, lay the picturesque town of Lerici, and far away to 
the west shone the white villas of Porto Venere. It 
was summer in Italy, glorious season in a glorious land. 
Late in June he wrote Horace Smith : " I still inhabit 
this divine bay, reading Spanish dramas, and sailing, 
and listening to the most enchanting music. We have 
some friends on a visit to us, and my only regret is that 
the summer must ever pass." 

One friend, however, was wanting to complete their 
circle. All through the years repeated invitations had 
been sent to Leigh Hunt to visit them in Italy, and 
now in this eventful summer he was on his way south. 
During the early days of July at Leghorn the friends 
clasped hands for the first time since Shelley had parted 
from English shores. The meeting was characterized 
by that affection which in strong men is as touching as 
it is beautiful. "I will not dwell upon the moment," 
wrote Hunt, with inexpressible tenderness, in his Auto- 
biography. 

Hunt was established in Byron's palace at Pisa, and, 
after a few days of delightful intercourse, Shelley 
started on his return to Casa Magni, where Hunt was 
to follow him in a few days. On July 8, with Williams 
and one seaman, he sailed from Leghorn in a small 
yacht. With a heart full of gladness at the anticipation 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

of his friend's companionship, there was no cloud on 
Shelley's sky that day; but waiting in the storm which 
crouched beneath the horizon was his fate. The after- 
noon was hot and sultry. There was a stillness in the 
atmosphere that boded no good to the sea-going mar- 
iner. "The Devil is brewing mischief," remarked the 
Genoese mate of Byron's yacht, as Shelley's little vessel 
beat slowly out to sea. A little later a fog shut out the 
sea view, and the storm broke. It did not last a short 
half-hour, but that brief space held woe enough for those 
who loved Shelley to tinge all after life with the sombre 
hues of an ineffaceable grief. 

Trelawny had watched the storm from Byron's yacht, 
and when the skies cleared no sail was seen against the 
smiling horizon. Something told him that the worst 
had come. Summoning Byron and Hunt, the friends 
patrolled the beach for many miles, and not until ten 
days later was Shelley's body found washed on the 
sands near Via Reggio. 

The quarantine regulations required that the remains 
be burned, and loving hands prepared them for the final 
rites. The body was placed in an iron receiver ; over it 
was poured a vast quantity of oil and wine, and on the 
sea-shore, on August 8, it was consigned to the purifying 
flame. Only the heart refused to be consumed. It was 
rescued by Trelawny, and given to Mrs. Shelley, while 
the ashes were interred in the English cemetery at 
Rome, beside the grave of his son William, and near 
that of Keats. 

Thus lived and died one of the strangest geniuses of 
the century ; one who left behind him a deathless fame, 
but a fame that we scarcely know how to estimate. As 
a poet, as a man of intellectual power, as a man of al- 
most transcendent genius, his position is not to be ques- 
tioned. But he was more than this; he was the cham- 
pion of those principles which were waging the bitterest 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

warfare against the shams of the world, against that old 
idolatry which still remained from the Dark Ages; he 
was "the poetical representative of those whose hopes 
and aspirations and affections rush forward to embrace 
the great hereafter, and dwell in rapturous antici- 
pation on the coming of the golden year, the reign of 
universal freedom, and the establishment of universal 
brotherhood." 

His creed was that the truly good and the truly beau- 
tiful were one and the same, and in this he was much 
nearer to the highest truth than he realized. Holding 
to this belief, had he entered the right path at the be- 
ginning of his life, we cannot conceive of a career that 
would have been above his reach. With his intellectual 
power, combined with his intense earnestness and en- 
thusiasm, his absolute fearlessness, and his limitless 
capacity for appreciating the lofty poetry which is inter- 
woven like a thread of fine-spun gold through all the 
fabric of Christianity, he would have proved a splendid 
ornament to that religion, a blazing beacon whose rays 
would have shone down through future centuries guid- 
ing men to truth and light. 

What we must admire most of all in Shelley is the 
great love he bore his fellow-man. However mistaken 
they were, his life was one continuous sacrifice to those 
principles which he conscientiously believed would ele- 
vate mankind, if carried out. He found man out of 
harmony with truth, with beauty. He recognized that 
the chords of his nature had not been torn asunder by 
the fall; they were only out of tune. He looked on 
humanity as some vast harp 1 from which could be drawn 
symphonies which could charm sin and depravity out of 
the world, but whose music was a jangling discord be- 
cause the strings were not attuned one to another ; 

1 See the " Defence of Poetry." 



INTRO D UCTION. 2 1 

and he believed that it was his mission to find that key 
by which discord could be changed into music of a 
divine strain, and the harsh tones blended into an eter- 
nal harmony. This was his aim, and to it he sacrificed 
everything. But little did he realize the hopelessness 
of his task. In his enthusiasm, in his fearless warfare 
against every obstacle, he forgot that through a hun- 
dred centuries poets and prophets, priests and seers, 
had striven to bring about the same end, and that even 
in the face of divinely inspired effort the discord had 
swelled until human life had become a horrid Pande- 
monium. He did not know that the cause of the discord 
was human nature itself, and that the fingers of a god 
would have to sweep those strings before the music of 
which he dreamed could be brought forth. 

Shelley's attitude toward his fellow-man he sums up 
in one of the grandest of his prose passages, in his 
eloquent note to that strange autobiographical poem, 
"Alastor." He says :— 

" They who, deluded by no generous error, instigated by no 
sacred thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious 
superstition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no 
hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, 
rejoicing neither with human joy, nor mourning With human 
grief, these, and such as they, have their apportioned curse. 
They languish because none feel with them their common 
nature. They are morally dead. They are neither friends, 
nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor bene- 
factors of their country. Among those who attempt to exist 
without human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish 
through the intensity and passion of their search after its 
communities when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes 
itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those un- 
foreseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, 
the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who 
love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare 
for their old age a miserable grave." 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

The value of this declaration as an index to Shelley's 
position is enhanced by the fact that it was written at 
that early period when his opinions were but little mod- 
ified, and when he gloried in the self- applied epithet of 
Atheist, "to express," as he said, "his abhorrence of 
superstition." 

Mrs. Shelley, in passing judgment upon Shelley's 
prose writings, has said that he "commanded language 
splendid and melodious as Plato," and while we are not 
prepared to indorse to the fullest extent her naturally 
biased opinion, it is none the less true that the verdict 
of more than one eminent scholar has been that in 
splendor of expression and power of thought his prose 
more nearly resembles that of the ancient master than 
that of any of his contemporaries. Every true poet, as 
Wordsworth has declared, must be a writer of good 
prose. The genius possessed by the real poet includes 
in its scope the prose writer, and few men have ever 
attained a high plane in the realm of the Muses whose 
pens could not be used with singular force and effect in 
the more serious field of prose. But Shelley's power in 
this respect was not to be compared with the average 
of his fellow-singers. There was in all he wrote a mel- 
ody, a subtle rhythm, which made his prose close akin 
to poetry. There was a depth to the current of his 
words as well as to the current of his thought, and his 
splendid imagery, and his wealth of metaphor, drawn 
from all that represented sweetness, light, love, beauty, 
and sublimity, in both physical and spiritual nature, has 
given to his writings so much of literary value that so 
distinguished a critic as Matthew Arnold has doubted 
whether Shelley's "delightful letters and essays, which 
deserve to be far more read than they now are, will not 
resist the wear and tear of time better, and finally come 
to stand higher, than his poetry." 

In his prose writings Shelley covered a wide range. 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

When he entered Oxford, a stripling of eighteen years, 
he had already found a publisher for more than one 
novel of a distinct "blue-fire " type, and in 1812 he con- 
sidered them serious enough to submit to Godwin for 
perusal. At an early age he began to put forth political 
tracts, which showed marked clearness of thought and 
directness of logic, and, what was most singular of all, 
considering the nature of the author, were models of tol- 
erance and calm, dispassionate argument. Although the 
"Defence of Poetry" stands as Shelley's prose master- 
piece, he rose to some of his most magnificent flights in 
the prefaces and notes to his poems. The extract al- 
ready given from the note to "Alastor " is a striking in- 
stance of prose composed while the divine impulse was 
still upon the poet, while the fire of poetic enthusiasm 
was still aglow. The "Defense of Poetry " is an ex- 
quisite essay written as " an antidote " to Peacock's 
" Four Ages of Poetry." 1 This work is on the same 
lines as Sir Philip Sidney's famous "Apology," but con- 
tains much splendid and original thought, while the 
style and treatment are such as to secure for it a position 
as an English classic. Shelley intended to prepare the 
essay in three parts, but only the first was ever completed. 
When one attempts to discuss Shelley's letters in any 
circumscribed space, he feels as hopeless as did the man 
in the Eastern fable who sought to imprison the giant 
in the flower. Nearly all of us at certain periods of 
our lives have conceived a passion for Shelley's poetry, 
which, in many cases, has been in a measure outgrown : 
but to outgrow a keen appreciation of Shelley's letters 
would be to lose a taste for some of the finest prose in 
the English tongue. In discussing them the tempta- 
tion to discuss his poetry is wellnigh irresistible, for the 
reason that the two in so many instances are insep- 

1 See Letter LXXXVII. 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

arable. The letters often are the groundwork of his 
poems, and one famous letter has long since been in- 
cluded in every volume of his poetry that pretends to be 
either complete, or to be a selection of his best work. 
Shelley had a keen conception of the beautiful, and 
whenever he seized upon a beautiful idea he cherished 
it, and clung to it, and it imparted to him an inspiration 
which did not pass with the moment. First he would 
give expression to it in some letter of tender friendship 
to Peacock, or Hunt, or perhaps to the Gisbornes, and 
next we find it interwoven with other beautiful concep- 
tions through the musical stanzas of some incomparable 
poem. This it is that so enhances the value of these 
letters. They cannot be divorced from his immortal 
works; each is the complement of the other. Reading 
them together, we find that he idealized and clothed in 
flaming verse the experiences and observations of his 
every-day life ; that by the alchemy of his splendid 
genius he transmuted his restless, stormy life into a 
poem. There are few of his poetical productions that 
do not contain striking autobiographical passages, and 
by means of the letters we trace them with delightful 
accuracy. Idealist that he was, he knew no distinction 
between the common realities of his life and the higher 
things that were a part of his poet nature. To him 
poetry and all things beautiful were realities, and the 
sternest realities themselves he elevated and spiritu- 
alized. 

Thus dwelling in an atmosphere of poetry, ever on the 
wing, Shelley transfused all life with a beauty that shines 
through everything he wrote, and most especially through 
the letters of certain periods. In those written to Pea- 
cock from Switzerland and Italy, more particularly, 
does he lose himself in the contemplation of the beautiful 
around him ; and often does he pour forth periods as 
fresh and beautiful as the most unpremeditated song. 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

The descriptions he sends his friends of the paintings 
and statuary in the Italian galleries are no less artistic 
and inspiring, and the impressions he imparts regarding 
the ruins of u the capital of the vanished world," are in 
a style not inferior to any prose ever written. We have 
not space for long extracts, although the temptation to 
quote indefinitely is difficult to withstand. Take, for 
instance, a few lines from his description of the ruins 
of the Thermae of Caracalla. 

" There grow on every side," he says, " thick entangled 
wildernesses of myrtle and myrletus and bay, and the flower- 
ing laurestinus, whose white blossoms are just developed, the 
white fig, and a thousand nameless plants sowed by the wan- 
dering wind. . . . Around rise other crags and other peaks, 
all arrayed, and the deformity of their vast desolation soft- 
ened down by the undecaying investiture of nature/' 

Pursuing this description he is overcome by the emo- 
tions produced by the contemplation of so much beauty, 
and breaking forth in words strikingly similar to those 
employed in the "Adonais," he cries : " Come to Rome ! 
It is a scene by which expression is overpowered, — 
which words cannot convey ! " We cannot but feel 
something of that intoxication that seized upon him as ? 
winding through the " deep dells of wood, and lofty 
rocks, and terrific chasms " of this splendid ruin, he 
suddenly comes upon some little mossy lawn " over- 
grown by anemonies, wall-flowers, and violets, whose 
stalks pierce the starry moss, and with radiant blue 
flowers, whose names I know not, and which scatter 
through the air the divinest odor, which, as you re- 
cline under the shade of the ruin, produces sensations 
of voluptuous faintness, like combinations of sweet 
music." 

Then comes the conclusion, tender, beautiful, and 
eloquent : — 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

" I walk forth in the purple and golden light of an Italian 
evening, and return by star or moon light through this scene. 
The elms are just budding, and the warm spring winds bring 
unknown odors all sweet from the country. I see the radiant 
Orion through the mighty columns of the Temple of Concord, 
and the mellow, fading light softens down the modern build- 
ings of the Capitol, the only ones that interfere with the sub- 
lime desolation of the scene." 

Aside from the literary value of these letters, nothing 
can be more delightful than the glimpses they afford of 
the life led by that strange band of literary Englishmen 
with whom Shelley was associated in Italy. Byron, 
Trelawny, Keats, Hunt, — the very names conjure up 
memories which will live for all time in the annals of 
English literature. Byron, "the pilgrim of eternity," 
is there seen at his best and at his worst; Trelawny, 
the strange adventurer, seems here, under Shelley's in- 
fluence, to rise somewhat above his low nature ; Hunt, 
who joined the exiles only at the last, appears through 
all the letters the gentle poet, the unyielding patriot ; of 
Keats Shelley saw but little, but he watched his career 
with the keenest interest, and his criticisms in these rec- 
ords are among the best and most faithful the young 
"Adonais " ever received. The life we see here must 
ever be of the most intense interest to students of litera- 
ture, because we know that from every phase of it were 
born works that gave immortalizing fame to their authors. 
How delightful to follow the evolution of " The Cenci," 
of " Epipsychidion," of "Adonais," to go with Shelley 
over the manuscript pages of his friend's " Childe Har- 
old " and " Don Juan," to hear how Byron lived and 
worked, to learn of Shelley's strange erratic methods, 
and to read his own clear judgment on his own works ! 
In these letters the characters are their real selves; 
there is no false coloring, as by admiring biographers 
or unsympathetic critics of later times. Here we have 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

the unvarnished truth, written, not for the public eye, 
but for those who understood him, to whom he could 
bare his whole heart, knowing that in so doing he was 
secure in their love and friendship. 

A glorious life it was, that life in Italy, and a glo- 
rious reflection of it Shelley has given us in his letters. 
About them hovers the warm breath of that summer 
land; seen through the transfusing medium of his glow- 
ing descriptions, a double fascination seems to hover 
over its blue islands and crystal seas ; its mountain 
peaks and crags seem loftier and more sublime, the 
emerald plains between them of a richer green; and 
while reading, one can almost imagine he hears the 
musical ripple of the water about the keel of his drift- 
ing boat as the exiled poet dreamed by the shores of 
that mystic country. There is a subtle charm about 
them like old-time music, which transports us out of our- 
selves and carries us far across the seas to that " Magic 
Land " which has been the birthplace of so much great- 
ness and is the home of 30 much beauty. 

S. C. H. 
Sewanee, Tenn., September, 1892. 



THE BEST LETTERS 

OF 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 



TO LEIGH HUNT,* 

University College, Oxford, March 2, 181 1. 
Permit me, although a stranger, to offer my 
sincerest congratulations on the occasion of that 
triumph so highly to be praised by men of liberality ; 
permit me also to submit to your consideration as 
one of the fearless enlighteners of the public mind 
at the present time a scheme of mutual safety and 
mutual indemnification for men of public spirit and 
principle, which, if carried into effect, would evidently 
be productive of incalculable advantages. . . . The 
ultimate intention of my aim is to induce a meeting 
of such enlightened, unprejudiced members of the 
community, whose independent principles expose 
them to evils which might thus become alleviated, 
and to form a methodical society which should be 

1 This letter was written on the occasion of Hunt's third 
acquittal of the charge of seditious libel. The charges were 
based on publications in " The Examiner." 



30 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

organized so as to resist the coalition of the enemies 
of liberty, which at present renders any expression 
of opinion on matters of policy dangerous to individ- 
uals. It has been for the want of societies of this 
nature that corruption has attained the height at 
which we behold it ; nor can any of us bear in mind 
the very great influence which, some years since, 
was gained by Illuminism, without considering that 
a society of equal extent might establish rational 
liberty on as firm a basis as that which would have 
supported the visionary schemes of a completely 
equalized community. 

Although perfectly unacquainted with you privately, 
I address you as a common friend to liberty, thinking 
that, in cases of this urgency and importance, eti- 
quette ought not to stand in the way of usefulness. 



II. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Keswick, January 10, 1812. 

You complain that the generalizing character of 
my letter renders it deficient in interest ; that I am 
not an individual to you. Yet, intimate as I am with 
your character and your writings, intimacy with 
yourself must in some degree precede this exposure 
of my peculiarities. It is scarely possible, however 
pure be the morality which he has endeavored to 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 31 

diffuse, but that generalization must characterize the 
uninvited address of a stranger to a stranger. 

I proceed to remedy the fault. I am the son of 
a man of fortune in Sussex. The habits of thinking 
of my father and myself never coincided. Passive 
obedience was inculcated and enforced in my child- 
hood. I was required to love, because it was my 
duty to love : it is scarcely necessary to remark that 
coercion obviated its own intention. I was haunted 
with a passion for the wildest and most extravagant 
romances. Ancient books of chemistry and magic 
were perused with an enthusiasm of wonder amount- 
ing almost to belief. My sentiments were unre- 
strained by anything within me ; external impedi- 
ments were numerous, and strongly applied ; their 
effect was merely temporary. 

From a reader, I became a writer of romances ; 
before the age of seventeen I had published two, 
"St. Irvyne" and "Zastrozzi," each of which, 
though quite uncharacteristic of me as now I am, 
yet serves to mark the state of my mind at the 
period of their composition. I shall desire them to 
be sent to you ; do not, however, consider this as 
any obligation to yourself to misapply your valuable 
time. 

It is now a period of more than two years since 
first I saw your inestimable book of " Political Jus- 
tice " - it opened to my mind fresh and more exten- 
sive views ; it materially influenced my character, and 
I rose from its perusal a wiser and better man. I 
was no longer the votary of romance ; till then I had 
existed in an ideal world, — now I found that in this 



32 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

universe of ours was enough to excite the interest 
of the heart, enough to employ the discussions of 
reason. I beheld, in short, that I had duties to 
perform. Conceive the effect which the " Political 
Justice " would have upon a mind before jealous of 
its independence, and participating somewhat singu- 
larly in a peculiar susceptibility. 

My age is now nineteen ; at the period to which 
I allude I was at Eton. No sooner had I formed 
the principles which I now profess than I was anx- 
ious to disseminate them. ... I went to Oxford. 
Oxonian society was insipid to me, uncongenial with 
my habits of thinking. I could not descend to 
common life : the sublime interest of poetry, lofty 
and exalted achievements, the proselytism of the 
world, the equalization of its inhabitants, were to me 
the soul of my soul. You can probably form some 
idea of the contrast exhibited to my character by 
those with whom I was surrounded. Classical read- 
ing and poetical writing employed me during my 
residence at Oxford. 

It will be necessary in order to elucidate this part 
of my history to inform you that I am heir by entail 
to an estate of <£6,ooo per annum. My principles 
have induced me to regard the law of primogeniture 
an evil of primary magnitude. My father's notions 
of family honor are incoincident with my knowledge 
of public good. I will never sacrifice the latter to 
any consideration. . . . These are the leading points 
of the history of the man before you. Others exist, 
but I have thought proper to make some selection, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 33 

not that it is my design to conceal or extenuate any 
part, but that I should by their enumeration quite 
outstep the bounds of modesty. Now it is for you 
to judge whether, by permitting me to cultivate your 
friendship, you are exhibiting yourself more really 
useful than by the pursuance of those avocations of 
which the time spent in allowing this cultivation 
would deprive you. I am now earnestly pursuing 
studious habits. I am writing " An Inquiry into the 
Causes of the Failure of the French Revolution to 
benefit Mankind." My plan is that of resolving 
to lose no opportunity to disseminate truth and 
happiness. 

I am married to a woman whose views are similar 
to my own. To you, as the regulator and former of 
my mind, I must ever look with real respect and 
veneration. 



III. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Keswick, January 1 6, 1812. 
That so prompt and so kind an answer should 
have relieved my mind, I had scarely dared to hope ; 
to find that he, — who as an author had gained my 
love and confidence, whose views and habits I had 
delighted to conjecture from his works, whose princi- 
ples I had adopted, and every trace of whose exist- 
ence is now made sacred, and I hope eternally so, 
by associations which throw the charm of feeling 
over the deductions of reason, — that he as a man 

3 



34 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

should be my friend and adviser, the moderator of 
my enthusiasm, the personal exciter and strengthener 
of my virtuous habits, — all this was more than I had 
dared to trust myself to hope, and which now comes 
to me almost like a ray of second existence. 

I know not how to describe the pleasure which 
your last letter has given me ; that William Godwin 
should have " a deep and earnest interest in my 
welfare/' cannot but produce the most intoxicating 
sensations. It may be my vanity which is thus 
flattered, but I am much deceived in myself if love 
and respect for the great and worthy form not a 
very considerable part of my feelings. 

I cannot help considering you as a friend and 
adviser whom I have known very long ; this circum- 
stance must generate a degree of familiarity, which 
will cease to appear surprising to you when the 
intimacy which I had acquired with your writings so 
much preceded the information which led to my 
first letter. It may be said that I have derived 
little benefit or injury from artificial education. I 
have known no tutor or adviser (not excepting my 
father) from whose lessons and suggestions I have 
not recoiled with disgust. 

You say, ft Being yet a scholar, I ought to have no 
intolerable itch to become a teacher." I have not, 
so far as any publications of mine are irreconcilable 
with the general good, or so far as they are negative. 
I do not set up for a judge of controversies, but into 
whatever company I go I have introduced my own 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 35 

sentiments, partly with a view, if they were any wise 
erroneous, that unforeseen elucidations might rectify 
them ; or if they were not, that I might contribute 
my mite to the treasury of wisdom and happiness. I 
hope in the course of our communication to acquire 
that sobriety of spirit which is the characteristic of 
true heroism. I have not heard without benefit that 
Newton was a modest man ; I am not ignorant that 
vanity and folly delight in forwardness and assump- 
tion. But I think there is a line to be drawn between 
the affectation of unpossessed talents, and the deceit 
of self-distrust, by which much power has been lost 
to the world ; for 

" P'ull many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

This line may be called "the modesty of nature." 
I hope I am somewhat anxious not to outstep its 
boundaries. I will not again crudely obtrude the 
question of atheism on the world. But could I not 
at the same time improve my own powers and 
diffuse true and virtuous principles? Many with 
equally confined talents to my own are by publica- 
tions scattering the seeds of prejudice and selfishness. 
Might not an exhibition of truth, with equal elegance 
and depth, suffice to counteract the deleterious 
tendency of their principles ? Does not writing hold 
the next place to colloquial discussion in eliciting 
and classing the powers of the mind ? I am willing 
to become a scholar, — nay, a pupil. My humility 
and confidence, where I am conscious that I am 
not imposed upon, and where I perceive talents and 



2,6 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

powers so certainly and undoubtedly superior, is 
unfeigned and complete. 

In a few days we set off to Dublin. I do not know 
exactly where we shall be ; but a letter addressed to 
Keswick will find me. Our journey has been settled 
some time. We go principally to forward as much 
as we can the Catholic Emancipation. 

Southey, the poet whose principles were pure and 
elevated once, is now the paid champion of every 
abuse and absurdity. I have had much conversation 
with him. He says, " You will think as I do when 
you are as old." I do not feel the least disposition 
to be Mr. S.'s proselyte. 



IV. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Keswick, Cumberland, January 28, 18 12. 
• •».... 

You regard early authorship detrimental to the 
cause of general happiness. I confess this has not 
been my opinion, even when I have bestowed deep, 
and, I hope, disinterested thought upon the subject. 
If any man would determine sincerely and cautiously, 
at every period of his life, to publish books which 
should contain the real state of his feelings and opin- 
ions, I am willing to suppose that this portraiture of 
his mind would be worth many metaphysical disquisi- 
tions ; and one whose mind is strongly imbued with 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 37 

an ardent desire of communicating pleasurable sensa- 
tions is, of all others, the least likely to publish, any 
feelings or opinions but such as should excite the 
reader to discipline in some sort his mind into the 
same state as that of the writer. 

With these sentiments I have been preparing an 
address to the Catholics of Ireland, and, however 
deficient may be its execution, I can by no means 
admit that it contains one sentiment that can harm 
the cause of liberty and happiness. It consists of the 
benevolent and tolerant deductions of philosophy 
reduced into the simplest language, and such as those 
who by their uneducated poverty are most susceptible 
of evil impressions from Catholicism may clearly com- 
prehend. I know it can do no harm ; it cannot excite 
rebellion, as its main principle is to trust the success 
of a cause to the energy of its truth. It cannot " widen 
the breach between the kingdoms," as it attempts to 
convey to the vulgar mind sentiments of universal 
philanthropy ; and whatever impressions it may pro- 
duce, they can be no others but those of peace and 
harmony; it owns no religion but benevolence, no 
cause but virtue, no party but the world. I shall 
devote myself with unremitting zeal, so far as an un- 
certain state of health will permit, towards forwarding 
the great ends of happiness and virtue in Ireland, 
regarding as I do the present state of that country's 
affairs as an opportunity which, if I, being thus dis- 
engaged, permit to pass unoccupied, I am unworthy 
of the character which I have assumed. Enough of 
Ireland ! 



38 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

V. 

TO THOMAS HOOKHAM, ESQ. 

Lymouth, Barnstaple, August 18, 1812. 

You confer on me an obligation, and involve a high 
compliment by your advice. I shall, if possible, pre- 
pare a volume of essays, moral and religious, by 
November ; but all my MSS. now being in Dublin, 
and, from peculiar circumstances, not immediately 
obtainable, I do not know whether I can. I enclose 
also, by way of specimen, all that I have written of a 
little poem begun since my arrival in England. I 
conceive I have matter enough for six more cantos. 
You will perceive that I have not attempted to temper 
my constitutional enthusiasm in that poem. Indeed, 
a poem is safe : the iron-souled Attorney General 
would scarcely dare to attack [it]. 1 The Past, the 
Present, and the Future are the grand and compre- 
hensive topics of this poem. I have not yet half 
exhausted the second of them. 

I shall take the liberty of retaining the two poems 
which you have sent me (Mr. Peacock's), and only 
regret that my powers are so circumscribed as to 

1 " Queen Mab/' Shelley's first serious effort. Contrary 
to his expectations, it was attacked in the courts, but not in 
the way he has reference to here. His children were taken 
from him on account of the views he expressed in the notes, 
although at the time he warmly repudiated the sentiments 
they contained. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 39 

prevent me from becoming extensively useful to your 
friend. The poems abound with a genius, an infor- 
mation, the power and extent of which I admire, in 
proportion as I lament the object of their application. 
Mr. Peacock conceives that commerce is prosperity ; 
that the glory of the British flag is the happiness of 
the British people ; that George III., so far from 
having been a warrior and a tyrant, has been a patriot. 
To me it appears otherwise ; and I have rigidly accus- 
tomed myself not to be seduced by the loveliest 
eloquence or the sweetest strains to regard with in- 
tellectual toleration that which ought not to be toler- 
ated by those who love liberty, truth, and virtue. I 
mean not to say that Mr. Peacock does not love 
them ; but I mean to say that he regards those means 
[as] instrumental to their progress, which I regard 
[as] instrumental to their destruction. (See Genius 
of the Thames, pp. 24, 26, 28, 76, 98.) At the same 
time, I am free to say that the poem appears to be 
far beyond mediocrity in genius and versification, 
and the conclusion of " Palmyra " the finest piece of 
poetry I ever read. I have not had time to read the 
"Philosophy of Melancholy," and of course am only 
half acquainted with that genius and those powers 
whose application I should consider myself rash and 
impertinent in criticising, did I not conceive that 
frankness and justice demand it. 

I should esteem it as a favor if you would present 
the enclosed letter to the Chevalier Lawrence. I 
have read his " Empire of the Nairs," — nay, have it. 
Perfectly and decidedly do I subscribe to the truth 
of the principles which it is designed to establish. 



40 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I hope you will excuse, nay, and doubt not but you 
will, the frankness I have used. Characters of our 
liberality are so wondrous rare, that the sooner they 
know each other, and the fuller and more complete 
that knowledge is, the better. 

Dear Sir, permit me to remain, yours, very truly. 

I am about translating an old French work, pro- 
fessedly by M. Mirabaud, — not the famous one, — 
"La Systeme de la Nature." Do you know any- 
thing of it? 



VI. 

TO HOOKHAM 

February, 1813. 

My dear Sir, — I am boiling with indignation at 
the horrible injustice and tyranny of the sentence 
pronounced on Hunt and his brother ; and it is on 
this subject that I write to you. Surely the seal of 
abjectness and slavery is indelibly stamped upon the 
character of England. 

Although I do not retract in the slightest degree 
my wish for a subscription for the widows and children 
of those poor men hung at York, yet this ^1,000 
which the Hunts are sentenced to pay is an affair of 
more consequence. Hunt is a brave, a good, and an 
enlightened man. Surely the public, for whom Hunt 
has done so much, will repay in part the great debt 
of obligation which they owe the champion of their 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 41 

liberties and virtues : or are they dead, cold, stone- 
hearted, and insensible, — brutalized by centuries of 
unremitting bondage ? However that may be, they 
surely may be excited into some slight acknowledg- 
ment of his merits. Whilst hundreds of thousands 
are sent to the tyrants of Russia, he pines in a 
dungeon, far from all that can make life desired. 

Well, I am rather poor at present ; but I have ^20 
which is not immediately wanted. Pray, begin a 
subscription for the Hunts ; put down my name for 
that sum, and, when I hear that you have complied 
with my request, I will send it you. 1 Now, if there 
are any difficulties in the way of this scheme of ours, 
for the love of liberty and virtue, overcome them. 
Oh ! that I might wallow for one night in the Bank of 
England ! 

" Queen Mab ,? is finished and transcribed. I am 
now preparing the notes, which shall be long and phil- 
osophical. You will receive it with the other poems. 
I think that the whole should form one volume ; but 
of that we can speak hereafter. 

My dear Sir, excuse the earnestness of the first part 
of my letter. I feel warmly on this subject, and I 
flatter myself that, so long as your own independence 
and liberty remain uncompromised, you are inclined 
to second my desires. 

1 Hunt refused to accept any subscriptions, however. 



42 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

VII. 

TO HOOKHAM. 

I send you my poem. To your remarks on its 
defects I shall listen, and derive improvement. No 
duty of a friend is more imperious than an utter 
sincerity and unreservedness [in] criticism, and none 
of which a candid mind can be the object with more 
inward complacency and satisfaction. At the same 
time, in spite of its various errors, I am determined to 
give it to the world. ... If you do not dread the 
arm of the law, or any exasperation of public opinion 
against yourself, I wish that it should be printed and 
published immediately. The notes are preparing and 
shall be forwarded before the completion of the print- 
ing of the poem. I have many other poems which 
shall also be sent. . . . Do not let the title-page be 
printed before the body of the poem. I have a motto 
to introduce from Shakespeare, and a Preface. I 
shall expect no success. Let only 250 copies be 
printed. A small neat quarto, on fine paper so as to 
catch the aristocrats. They will not read it ; but 
their sons and daughters may. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 43 

VIII. 

TO HOOKHAM. 

Bangor Ferry, March 6, 1813. 
In the first stage of our journey toward Dublin we 
met with your letter. How shall I express to you 
what I felt of gratitude, surprise, and pleasure ? Not 
so much that the remittance rescued us from a position 
of peculiar perplexity, but that one there was who, 
by disinterested and unhesitating confidence, made 
amends to our feelings, wounded by the suspicion, 
coldness, and villany of the world. If the discovery 
of truth be a pleasure of singular purity, how far 
surpassing is the discovery of virtue ! 



IX. 

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG. 

Bracknell, March 16, 18 14. 
My dear Friend, — I promised to write to you 
when I was in the humor. Our intercourse has been 
too much interrupted for my consolation. My spirits 
have not sufficed to induce the exertion of determin- 
ing me to write to you. My value, my affection for 
you, have sustained no diminution ; but I am a feeble, 
wavering being, who requires support and consolation, 
which his energies are too exhausted to return. 



44 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I have been staying with Mrs. B[oinville] for the 
last month ; I have escaped, in the society of all that 
philosophy and friendship combine, from the dismay- 
ing solitude of myself. They have revived in my 
heart the expiring flame of life. I have felt myself 
translated to a paradise, which has nothing of mortality 
but its transitoriness ; my heart sickens at the view of 
that necessity which will quickly divide me from the 
tranquillity of this happy home, — for it has become 
my home. The trees, the bridge, the minutest objects, 
have already a place in my affections. 

My friend ; you are happier than I. You have the 
pleasures as well as the pains of sensibility. I have 
sunk into a premature old age of exhaustion, which 
renders me dead to everything but the unenviable 
capacity of indulging the vanity of hope, and a terrible 
susceptibility to objects of disgust and hatred. 

My temporal concerns are slowly rectifying them- 
selves ; I am astonished at my own indifference to 
their event. I live here like the insect that sports in 
the transient sunbeam, which the next cloud shall 
obscure forever. I am much changed from what I 
was. I look with regret to our happy evenings at 
Oxford, and with wonder at the hopes which in the 
excess of my madness I there encouraged. 

What have you written ? I have been unable even to 
write a common letter. I have forced myself to read 
Beccaria, and Dumont's Bentham. I have some- 
times forgotten that I am not an inmate of this 
delightful home, — that a time will come which will 
cast me again into the boundless ocean of abhorred 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 45 

society. I have written nothing but one stanza which 
has no meaning, and that I have only written in 
thought : 

Thy dewy locks sink in my breast; 
Thy gentle words stir poison there ; 
Thou hast disturbed the only rest 
That was the portion of despair. 
Subdued to duty's hard control, 
I could have borne my wayward lot ; 
The chains that bind this ruined soul 
Had cankered then, but crushed it not. 

This is the vision of a delirious and distempered 
dream, which passes away at the cold, clear light of 
morning. Its surpassing excellence and exquisite 
perfections have no more reality than the color of an 
autumnal sunset. Adieu ! 



X. 

TO MARY SHELLEY.* 

[October 27, 18 14.] 

Know, my best Mary, that I feel myself, in your 
absence, almost degraded to the level of the vulgar 
and impure. I feel their vacant, stiff eyeballs fixed 
upon me, until I seem to have been infected with 
their loathsome meaning, — to inhale a sickness that 
subdues me to languor. Oh ! those redeeming eyes 

1 This and the two succeeding letters were written while 
Shelley was in hiding from creditors, who threatened his 
arrest. 



46 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

of Mary, that they might beam upon me before I 
sleep ! Praise my forbearance, beloved one, that 
I do not rashly fly to you, and at least secure a mo- 
ment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay ? Do you not 
long to meet me ? All that is exalted and buoyant 
in my nature urges me toward you, reproaches me 
with cold delay, laughs at all fear, and spurns to 
dream of prudence. Why am I not with you ? Alas ! 
we must not meet. 

I did not, for I could not, express to you my 
admiration of your letter to Fanny ; the simple and 
impressive language in which you clothed your argu- 
ment, the full weight you gave to every part, the 
complete picture you exhibited of what you intended 
to describe, was more than I expected. How hard 
and stubborn must be the spirit that does not confess 
you to be the subtlest and most exquisitely fashioned 
intelligence ! that among women there is no equal 
mind to yours ! And I possess this treasure ! How 
beyond all estimate is my felicity ! Yes; I am en- 
couraged, — I care not what happens ; I am most 
happy. Meet me to-morrow at three o'clock in St. 
Paul's, if you do not hear before. Adieu ! remember, 
love, at vespers before sleep. I do not omit my 
prayers. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 47 

XI. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

{October 28, 18 14.] 
My beloved Mary, I do not know whether these 
transient meetings produce not as much pain as 
pleasure. What have I said? I do not mean it. 
I will not forget the sweet moments when I saw your 
eyes, — the divine rapture of the few and fleeting 
kisses. Yet, indeed, this must cease ; indeed, we 
must not part thus wretchedly to meet amid the 
comfortless tumult of business, — to part, I know 
not how. 

Well, dearest love, to-morrow, — to-morrow night. 
That eternal clock ! Oh, that I could " fright the 
steeds of lazy-paced Time " ! I do not think that I 
am less impatient now than formerly to repossess — 
to entirely engross — my own treasured love. It 
seems so unworthy a cause for the slightest separa- 
tion. I could reconcile it to my own feelings to go 
to prison if they would cease to persecute us with in- 
terruptions. 

... I must return. Your thoughts alone can 
waken mine to energy ; my mind without yours is 
dead and cold as the dark midnight river when the 
moon is down. It seems as if you alone could shield 
me from impurity and vice. If I were absent from 
you long, I should shudder with horror at myself; 
my understanding becomes undisciplined without you. 
. . . How divinely sweet a task it is to imitate each 



48 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

other's excellences, and each moment to become 
wiser in this surpassing love, so that, constituting but 
one being, all real knowledge may be comprised in 
the maxim TvoaSi o-cavrov (Know thyself), with infi- 
nitely more justice than in its narrow and common 
application ! 



XII. 



TO MARY SHELLEY. 

{November 4, 18 14.] 
So my beloved boasts that she is more perfect in 
the practice than I in the theory of love. Is it thus ? 
No, sweet Mary, you only meant that you loved me 
more than you could express ; that reasoning was too 
cold and slow for the rapid fervor of your concep- 
tions. Perhaps, in truth, Peacock had infected me ; 
my disquisitions were cold, my subtleties unmeaningly 
refined ; and I am a harp responsive to every wind, — 
the scented gale of summer can wake it to sweet 
melody, but the rough, cold blasts draw forth dis- 
cordances and jarring sounds. 

My love, did I not appear happy to-day ? For a 
few moments I was entranced in most delicious 
pleasure ; yet I was absent and dejected. I knew 
not when we might meet again, when I might hold 
you in my arms, and gaze on your dear eyes at will. 

I expect to hear from Hooper to-morrow. Thus it 
is my letters are full of money, whilst my being over- 



PERCY BYSSLTE SHELLEY. 49 

flows with unbounded love and elevated thoughts. 
How little philosophy and affection consort with this 
turbid scene, — this dark scheme of things finishing 
in unfruitful death ! There are moments in your ab- 
sence, my love, when the bitterness with which I 
regret the unrecoverable time wasted in unprofitable 
solitude and worldly cares is a most painful weight. 
You alone reconcile me to myself, and to my beloved 
hopes. 



XIII. 

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG. 

Bishopsgate, September, 181 5. 
My dear Friend, — Your letter has lain by me 
for the last week, reproaching me every day. I found 
it on my return from a water excursion on the Thames, 
the particulars of which will have been recounted in 
another letter. The exercise and dissipation of mind 
attached to such an expedition have produced so 
favorable an effect on my health, that my habitual 
dejection and irritability have almost deserted me, 
and I can devote six hours in the day to study with- 
out difficulty. I have been engaged lately in the 
commencement of several literary plans, which, if my 
present temper of mind endures, I shall probably 
complete in the winter. I have consequently deserted 
Cicero, or proceed but slowly with his philosophic 
dialogues. I have read the Oration for the poet 
Archias, and am only disappointed with its brevity. 

4 



5'0 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I have been induced by one of the subjects which 
I am now pursuing to consult Bayle. I think he be- 
trays great obliquity of understanding and coarseness 
of feeling. I have also read the four finest books of 
Lucan's Pharsalia, — a poem, as it appears to me, of 
wonderful genius, and transcending Virgil. Mary has 
finished the fifth book of the iEneid, and her progress 
in Latin is such as to satisfy my best expectations. 

The east wind — the wind of autumn — is abroad, 
and even now the leaves of the forest are shattered at 
every gust. When may we expect you ? September 
is almost passed, and October, the month of your 
promised return, is at hand, when we shall be happy 
to welcome you again to our fireside. 

No events ; as you know, disturb our tranquillity. 
Adieu. 



XIV. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Dover, May 3, 1816. 

No doubt you are anxious to hear the state of my 

concerns. 1 I wish that it was in my power to give 

you a more favorable view of them than such as I am 

compelled to present. The limited condition of my 

1 Godwin's interest in Shelley's affairs is explained by the 
fact that he had been a pensioner on the latter's bounty for 
many months. This letter was written on the eve of Shelley's 
departure for the Continent, where he expected to find a per- 
manent residence. He was in England again by the next 
autumn, however. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 51 

fortune is regretted by me, as I imagine you well 
know, because, among other designs of a similar 
nature, I cannot at once put you in possession of all 
that would be sufficient for the comfort and indepen- 
dence which it is so unjust that you should not have 
already received from society. 

The motives which determined me to leave Eng- 
land, and which I stated to you in a former letter, 
have continued since that period to press on me 
with accumulated force. Continually detained in a 
situation where what I esteem a prejudice does not 
permit me to live on equal terms with my fellow- 
beings, I resolved to commit myself to a decided step. 
I therefore take Mary to Geneva, where I shall devise 
some plan of settlement, and only leave her to return 
to London, and exclusively devote myself to business. 

I leave England — I know not — perhaps forever. 
I return, alone, to see no friend, to do no office of 
friendship, to engage in nothing that can soothe the 
sentiments of regret, almost like remorse, / which 
under such circumstances every one feels who quits 
his native land. I respect you, I think well of you, 
better perhaps than any other person whom England 
contains ; you were the philosopher who first awak- 
ened, and who still as a philosopher, to a very great 
degree, regulates my understanding. It is unfortunate 
for me that the part of your character which is least 
excellent should have been met by my convictions of 
what was right to do. But I have been too indignant, 
I have been unjust to you. Forgive me : burn those 
letters which contain the records of my violence, and 



5? THE BEST LETTERS OF 

believe that, however what you erroneously call fame 
and honor separate us, I shall always feel towards you 
as the most affectionate of friends. 



XV. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 

Hotel de S£cheron, Geneva, May 15, 1816. 

After a journey of ten days, we arrived at Geneva. 
The journey, like that of life, was variegated with 
intermingled rain and sunshine, though these many 
showers were to me, as you know, April showers, 
quickly passing away, and foretelling the calm bright- 
ness of summer. 

The journey was in some respects exceedingly 
delightful, but the prudential considerations arising 
out of the necessity of preventing delay, and the 
continual attention to pecuniary disbursements, detract 
terribly from the pleasure of all travelling schemes. 

You live by the shores of a tranquil stream, among 
low and woody hills. You live in a free country, 
w r here you may act without restraint, and possess 
that which you possess in security ; and so long as 
the name of country and the selfish conceptions it 
includes shall subsist, England, I am persuaded, is 
the most free and the most refined. 

Perhaps you have chosen wisely, but if I return and 
follow your example, it will be no subject of regret to 
me that I have seen other things. Surely there is 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 53 

much of bad and much of good, there is much to 
disgust and much to elevate, which he cannot have 
felt or known who has never passed the limits of his 
native land. 

So long as man is such as he now is, the experience 
of which I speak will never teach him to despise the 
country of his birth, — far otherwise. Like Words- 
worth, he will never know what love subsists be- 
tween that and him until absence shall have made its 
beauty more heartfelt; our poets and philosophers, 
our mountains and our lakes, the rural lanes and 
fields which are so especially our own, are ties which, 
until I become utterly senseless, can never be broken 
asunder. 

These, and the memory of them, if I never should 
return, — these and the affections of the mind, with 
which, having been once united, [they] are insepa- 
rable, w T ill make the name of England dear to me 
forever, even if I should permanently return to it 
no more. 

The mountains of Jura exhibit scenery of wonderful 
sublimity. Pine forests of impenetrable thickness, 
and untrodden, nay, inaccessible expanse, spreading 
on every side. Sometimes descending, they follow 
the route into the valleys, clothing the precipitous 
rocks, and struggling with knotted roots between the 
most barren clefts. Sometimes the road winds high 
into the regions of frost, and there these forests 
become scattered, and loaded with snow. 

The trees in these regions are incredibly large, and 
stand in scattered clumps over the white wilderness. 



54 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

Never was scene more utterly desolate than that 
which we passed on the evening of our last day's 
journey. 

The natural silence of that uninhabitated desert 
contrasted strangely with the voices of the people who 
conducted us, for it was necessary in this part of the 
mountain to take a number of persons, who should 
assist the horses to force the chaise through the snow, 
and prevent it from falling down the precipice. 

We are now at Geneva, where, or in the neighbor- 
hood, we shall remain probably until the autumn. I 
may return in a fortnight or three weeks, to attend to 

the last exertions which L is to make for the 

settlement of my affairs ; of course I shall then see 
you ; in the mean time, it will interest me to hear all 
that you have to tell of yourself. 



XVI. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 

MONTALEGRE, NEAR COLIGNI, GENEVA, 

July 12 [1816]. 
It is nearly a fortnight since I have returned from 
Vevay. This journey has been on every account de- 
lightful, but most especially, because then I first knew 
the divine beauty of Rousseau's imagination, as it ex- 
hibits itself in "Julie." It is inconceivable what an 
enchantment the scene itself lends to those delinea- 
tions, from which its own most touching charm arises. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 55 

But I will give you an abstract of our voyage, which 
lasted eight days, and if you have a map of Switzer- 
land, you can follow me. 

We left Montalegre at half past two on the 23d of 
June. The lake was calm, and after three hours of 
rowing we arrived at Hermance, a beautiful little 
village, containing a ruined tower, built, the villagers 
say, by Julius Caesar. There were three other towers 
similar to it, which the Genevese destroyed for their 
own fortifications in 1560. We got into the tower by 
a kind of window. The walls are immensely solid, 
and the stone of which it is built so hard, that it yet 
retained the mark of chisels. The boatman said 
that this tower was once three times higher than it is 
now. There are two staircases in the thickness of 
the walls, one of which is entirely demolished, and 
the other half ruined, and only accessible by a ladder. 
The town itself, now an inconsiderable village inhab- 
ited by a few fishermen, was built by a queen of 
Burgundy, and reduced to its present state by the 
inhabitants of Berne, who burnt and ravaged every- 
thing they could find. 

Leaving Hermance, we arrived at sunset at the 
village of Herni. After looking at our lodgings, 
which were gloomy and dirty, we walked out by the 
side of the lake. It was beautiful to see the vast 
expanse of these purple and misty waters, broken by 
the craggy islets near to its slant and " beached 
margin." There were many fish sporting in the lake, 
and multitudes were collected close to the rocks to 
catch the flies which inhabited them. 

On returning to the village, we sat on a wall beside 



56 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

the lake, looking at some children who were playing 
at a game like ninepins. The children here appeared 
in an extraordinary way deformed and diseased. 
Most of them were crooked, and with enlarged 
throats ; but one little boy had such exquisite grace 
in his mien and motions as I never before saw 
equalled in a child. His countenance was beautiful 
for the expression with which it overflowed. There 
was a mixture of pride and gentleness in his eyes 
and lips, the indications of sensibility, which his edu- 
cation will probably pervert to misery or seduce to 
crime ; but there was more of gentleness than of 
pride, and it seemed that the pride was tamed from 
its original wildness by the habitual exercise of milder 
feelings. My companion gave him a piece of money, 
which he took without speaking, with a sweet smile of 
easy thankfulness, and then with an embarrassed air 
turned to his play. All this might scarcely be ; but 
the imagination surely could not forbear to breathe 
into the most inanimate forms some likeness of its 
own visions, on such a serene and glowing evening, 
in this remote and romantic village, beside the calm 
lake that bore us hither. 

On returning to our inn, we found that the servant 
had arranged our rooms, and deprived them of the 
greater portion of their former disconsolate appear- 
ance. They reminded my companion x of Greece ; 
it was five years, he said, since he had slept in such 
beds. The influence of the recollections excited by 
this circumstance on our conversation gradually faded, 
and I retired to rest with no unpleasant sensations, 
1 Lord Byron. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 57 

thinking of our journey to-morrow, and of the pleasure 
of recounting the little adventures of it when we re- 
turn. 

The next morning we passed Yvoire, a scattered 
village with an ancient castle, whose houses are inter- 
spersed with trees, and which stands at a little distance 
from Nerni, on the promontory which bounds a deep 
bay, some miles in extent. So soon as we arrived at 
this promontory, the lake began to assume an aspect 
of wilder magnificence. The mountains of Savoy, 
whose summits were bright with snow, descended in 
broken slopes to the lake : on high, the rocks were 
dark with pine forests, which become deeper and 
more immense, until the ice and snow mingle with 
the points of naked rock that pierce the blue air ; but 
below, groves of walnut, chestnut, and oak, with open- 
ings of lawny fields, attested the milder climate. 

We arrived at this town about seven o'clock, after 
a day which involved more rapid changes of atmos- 
phere than I ever recollect to have observed before. 
The morning w r as cold and wet ; then an easterly 
wind, and the clouds hard and high ; then thunder 
showers, and wind shifting to every quarter ; then a 
warm blast from the south, and summer clouds hang- 
ing over the peaks, with bright blue sky between. 
About half an hour after we had arrived at Evian, a 
few flashes of lightning came from a dark cloud, 
directly over head, and continued after the cloud had 
dispersed, " Diespiter per pura tonantes egit equos," 
a phenomenon which certainly had no influence on 
me corresponding with that which it produced on 
Horace. 



5 8 7'HE BEST LETTERS OF 

The appearance of the inhabitants of Evian is 
more wretched, diseased, and poor, than I ever recol- 
lect to have seen. The contrast indeed between the 
subjects of the King of Sardinia and the citizens of 
the independent republics of Switzerland, affords a 
powerful illustration of the blighting mischiefs of des- 
potism, whithin the space of a few miles. They have 
mineral waters here, eattx savonneuses they call them. 
In the evening we had some difficulty about our pass- 
ports, but so soon as the syndic heard my companion's 
rank and name, he apologized for the circumstance. 
The inn was good. During our voyage, on the distant 
height of a hill, covered with pine forests, we saw a 
ruined castle, which reminded me of those on the 
Rhine. 

We left Evian on the following morning, with a 
wind of such violence as to permit but one sail to be 
carried. The waves also were exceedingly high, and 
our boat so heavely laden, that there appeared to be 
some danger. We arrived, however, safe at Meillerie, 
after passing with great speed mighty forests which 
overhung the lake, and lawns of exquisite verdure, 
and mountains with bare and icy points, w T hich rose 
immediately from the summit of the rocks, whose 
bases were echoing to the waves. 

We here heard that the Empress Maria Louisa had 
slept at Meillerie — before the present inn was built, 
and when the accommodations were those of the most 
wretched village — in remembrance of St. Preux. 
How beautiful it is to find that the common senti- 
ments of human nature can attach themselves to 
those who are the most removed from its duties and its 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 59 

enjoyments, when Genius pleads for their admission 
at the gate of Power. To own them was becoming 
in the Empress, and confirms the affectionate praise 
contained in the regret of a great and enlightened 
nation. A Bourbon dared not even to have remem- 
bered Rousseau. She owed this power to that demo- 
cracy which her husband's dynasty outraged, and of 
which it was, however, in some sort, the representative 
among the nations of the earth. This little incident 
shows at once how unfit and how impossible it is for 
the ancient system of opinions, or for any power built 
upon a conspiracy to revive them, permanently to 
subsist among mankind. We dined there, and had 
some honey, the best I have ever tasted, the very 
essence of the mountain flowers, and as fragrant. 
Probably the village derives its name from this pro- 
duction. Meillerie is the well known scene of St. 
Preux's visionary exile ; but Meillerie is indeed en- 
chanted ground, were Rousseau no magician. Groves 
of pine, chestnut, and walnut overshadow it ; mag- 
nificent and unbounded forests, to which England 
affords no parallel. In the midst of these woods 
are dells of lawny expanse, inconceivably verdant, 
adorned with a thousand of the rarest flowers, and 
odorous with thyme. 

The lake appeared somewhat calmer as we left 
Meillerie, sailing close to the banks, whose magnifi- 
cence augmented with the turn of every promontory. 
But we congratulated ourselves too soon : the wind 
gradually increased in violence, until it blew tremen- 
dously ; and, as it came from the remotest extremity 
of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and 



60 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam. 
One of our boatmen, who was a dreadfully stupid 
fellow, persisted in holding the sail at a time when the 
boat was on the point of being driven under water by 
the hurricane. On discovering his error, he let it 
entirely go, and the boat for a moment refused to 
obey the helm ; in addition, the rudder was so broken 
as to render the management of it very difficult ; one 
wave fell in, and then another. My companion, an 
excellent swimmer, took off his coat, I did the same, 
and we sat with our arms crossed, every instant ex- 
pecting to be swamped. The sail was, however, again 
held, the boat obeyed the helm, and still in imminent 
peril from the immensity of the waves, we arrived in 
a few minutes at a sheltered port, in the village of St. 
Gingoux. 

I felt in this near prospect of death a mixture of 
sensations, among which terror entered, though but 
subordinately. My feelings would have been less 
painful had I been alone ; but I knew that my com- 
panion would have attempted to save me, and I was 
overcome with humiliation when I thought that his 
life might have been risked to preserve mine. When 
we arrived at St. Gingoux, the inhabitants who stood 
on the shore, unaccustomed to see a vessel as frail as 
ours, and fearing to venture at all on such a sea, 
exchanged looks of wonder and congratulation with 
our boatmen, who, as well as ourselves, were well 
pleased to set foot on shore. 

St. Gingoux is even more beautiful than Meillerie ; 
the mountains are higher, and their loftiest points of 
elevation descend more abruptly to the lake. On 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 61 

high, the aerial summits still cherish great depths of 
snow in their ravines, and in the paths of their unseen 
torrents. One of the highest of these is called Roche 
de St. Julien, beneath whose pinnacles the forests 
become deeper and more extensive ; the chestnut 
gives a peculiarity to the scene, which is most beauti- 
ful, and will make a picture in my memory, distinct 
from all other mountain scenes which I have ever 
before visited. 

On one side of the road was the immense Roche 
de St. Julien, which overhung it ; through the gateway 
of the castle we saw the snowy mountains of La 
Valais, clothed in clouds, and, on the other side, was 
the willowy plain of the Rhone, in a character of 
striking contrast with the rest of the scene, bounded 
by the dark mountains that overhang Clarens, Vevay, 
and the lake that rolls between. In the midst of the 
plain rises a little isolated hill, on which the white 
spire of a church peeps from among the tufted chest- 
nut woods. We returned to St. Gingoux before sunset, 
and I passed the evening in reading " Julie." 

As my companion rises late, I had time before 
breakfast, on the ensuing mornings to hunt the water- 
falls of the river that fall into the lake of St. Gingoux. 
The stream is, indeed, from the declivity over which 
it falls, only a succession of waterfalls, which roar 
over the rocks with a perpetual sound, and suspend 
their unceasing spray on the leaves and flowers that 
overhang and adorn its savage banks. The path tnat 
conducted along this river sometimes avoided the 
precipices of its shores, by leading through meadows ; 



62 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

sometimes threaded the base of the perpendicular 
and caverned rocks. I gathered in these meadows 
a nosegay of such flowers as I never saw in England, 
and which I thought more beautiful for that rarity. 

On my return, after breakfast, we sailed for Clarens, 
determining first to see the three mouths of the 
Rhone, and then the Castle of Chillon ; the day was 
fine, and the water calm. We passed from the blue 
waters of the lake over the stream of the Rhone, 
which is rapid even at a great distance from its con- 
fluence with the lake ; the turbid waters mixed with 
those of the lake, but mixed with them unwillingly. 
(See Nouvelle Heloise, Lettre 17, Part. 4.) I read 
"Julie" all day, — an overflowing, as it now seems, 
surrounded by the scenes which it has so wonderfully 
peopled, of sublimest genius, and more than human 
sensibility. Meillerie, the castle of Chillon, Clarens, 
the mountains of La Valais and Savoy, present them- 
selves to the imagination as monuments of things 
that were once familiar, and of beings that were once 
dear to it. They were created indeed by one mind, 
but a mind so powerfully bright as to cast a shade of 
falsehood on the records that are called reality. 

We passed on to the castle of Chillon, and visited 
its dungeons and towers. These prisons are exca- 
vated below the lake ; the principal dungeon is sup- 
ported by seven columns, whose branching capitals 
support the roof. Close to the very walls, the lake is 
eight hundred feet deep ; iron rings are fastened to 
these columns, and on them were engraven a multi- 
tude of names, partly those of visitors, and partly 
doubtless of the prisoners, of whom now no memory 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 63 

remains, and who thus beguiled a solitude which they 
have long ceased to feel. One date was as ancient 
as 1670. At the commencement of the Reformation, 
and indeed long after that period, this dungeon was 
the receptacle of those who shook, or who denied the 
system of idolatry, from the effects of which mankind 
is even now slowly emerging. 

Close to this long and lofty dungeon was a narrow 
cell, and beyond it one larger and far more lofty and 
dark, supported upon two unornamented arches. 
Across one of these arches was a beam, now black 
and rotten, on which prisoners were hung in secret. 
I never saw a monument more terrible of that cold 
and inhuman tyranny, which it had been the delight 
of man to exercise over man. It was indeed one of 
those many tremendous fulfilments which render the 
" pernicies humani generis " of the great Tacitus so 
solemn and irrefragable a prophecy. The gendarme 
who conducted us over this castle told us that there 
was an opening to the lake, by means of a secret 
spring, connected with which the whole dungeon 
might be filled with water before the prisoners could 
possibly escape ! 

We proceeded with a contrary wind to Clarens, 
against a heavy swell. I never felt more strongly 
than on landing at Clarens, that the spirit of old 
times had deserted its once cherished habitation. A 
thousand times, thought I, have Julie and St. Preux 
walked on this terraced road, looking towards these 
mountains which I now behold ; nay, treading on 
the ground where I now tread. From the window of 
our lodging our landlady pointed out " le bosquet de 



64 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

Julie." At least the inhabitants of this village are 
impressed with an idea, that the persons of that 
romance had actual existence. In the evening we 
walked thither. It is, indeed, Julie's wood. The hay 
was making under the trees ; the trees themselves 
were aged, but vigorous, and interspersed with 
younger ones, which are destined to be their succes- 
sors, and in future years, when we are dead, to afford 
a shade to future worshippers of nature, who love the 
memory of that tenderness and peace of which this 
was the imaginary abode. We walked forward among 
the vineyards, whose narrow terraces overlook this 
affecting scene. Why did the cold maxims of the 
world compel me at this moment to repress the tears 
of melancholy transport which it would have been so 
sweet to indulge, immeasurably, even until the dark- 
ness of night had swallowed up the objects which 
excited them ? 

I forgot to remark, what indeed my companion re- 
marked to me, that our danger from the storm took 
place precisely in the spot where Julie and her lover 
were nearly overset, and where St. Preux was tempted 
to plunge with her into the lake. 

On the following day we went to see the castle of 
Clarens, a square strong house, with very few win- 
dows, surrounded by a double terrace that overlooks 
the valley, or rather the plain of Clarens. The road 
which conducted to it wound up the steep ascent 
through woods of walnut and chestnut. We gathered 
roses on the terrace, in the feeling that they might be 
the posterity of some planted by Julie's hand. We 
sent their dead and withered leaves to the absent. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 65 

We went again to " the bosquet de Julie," and 
found that the precise spot was now utterly obliter- 
ated, and a heap of stones marked the place where 
the little chapel had once stood. Whilst we were ex- 
ecrating the author of this brutal folly, our guide in- 
formed us that the land belonged to the convent of 
St. Bernard, and that this outrage had been commit- 
ted by their orders. I knew before, that, if avarice 
could harden the hearts of men, a system of prescrip- 
tive religion has an influence far more inimical to 
natural sensibility. I know that an isolated man is 
sometimes restrained by shame from outraging the 
venerable feelings arising out of the memory of genius, 
which once made nature even lovelier than itself; but 
associated man holds it as the very sacrament of his 
union to forswear all delicacy, all benevolence, all re- 
morse ; all that is true, or tender, or sublime. 

We sailed from Clarens to Vevay. Vevay is a town 
more beautiful in its simplicity than any I have ever 
seen. Its market-place, a spacious square inter- 
spersed with trees, looks directly upon the mountains 
of Savoy and La Valais, the lake, and the valley of 
the Rhone. It was at Vevay that Rousseau conceived 
the design of " Julie." 

From Vevay we came to Ouchy, a village near Lau- 
sanne. The coasts of the Pays de Vaud, though full 
of villages and vineyards, present an aspect of tran- 
quillity and peculiar beauty which well compensates 
for the solitude which I am accustomed to admire. 
The hills are very high and rocky, crowned and inter- 
spersed with woods. Waterfalls echo from the cliffs, 
and shine afar. In one place we saw the traces of 

5 



66 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

two rocks of immense size, which had fallen from the 
mountain behind. One of these lodged in a room 
where a young woman was sleeping, without injuring 
her. The vineyards were utterly destroyed in its 
path, and the earth torn up. 

The rain detained us two days at Ouchy. We, 
however, visited Lausanne and saw Gibbon's house. 
We were shown the decayed summer-house where he 
finished his History, and the old acacias on the ter- 
race, from which he saw Mont Blanc, after having 
written the last sentence. There is something grand 
and even touching in the regret which he expresses 
at the completion of his task. It was conceived 
amid the ruins of the Capitol. The sudden depart- 
ure of his cherished and accustomed toil must have 
left him, like the death of a dear friend, sad and 
solitary. 

My companion gathered some acacia leaves to pre- 
serve in remembrance of him. I refrained from 
doing so, fearing to outrage the greater and more 
sacred name of Rousseau, the contemplation of 
whose imperishable creations had left no vacancy in 
my heart for mortal things. Gibbon had a cold and 
unimpassioned spirit. 1 never felt more inclination 
to rail at the prejudices which cling to such a thing, 
than now that Julie and Clarens, Lausanne and the 
Roman Empire, compelled me to a contrast between 
Rousseau and Gibbon. 

When we returned, in the only interval of sunshine 
during the day, I walked on the pier which the lake 
was lashing with its waves. A rainbow spanned the 
lake, or rather rested one extremity of its arch upon 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 67 

the water, and the other at the foot of the mountains 
of Savoy. Some white houses, I know not if they 
were those of Meillerie, shone through the yellow fire. 
On Saturday, the 30th of June, we quitted Ouchy, 
and after two days of pleasant sailing arrived on Sun- 
day evening at Montalegre. 



XVII. 

TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 

Geneva, July i7, 181 6. 

My opinion of turning to one spot of earth and 
calling it our home, and of the excellences and use- 
fulness of the sentiments arising out of this attach- 
ment, has at length produced in me the resolution of 
acquiring this possession. 

You are the only man who has sufficient regard 
for me to take an interest in the fulfilment of this 
design, and whose tastes conform sufficiently to mine 
to engage me to confide the execution of it to your 
discretion. 

I do not trouble you with apologies for giving you 
this commission. I require only rural exertion, walks, 
and circuitous wanderings, some slight negotiations 
about the letting of a house, the superintendence 
of a disorderly garden, some palings to be mended, 
some books to be removed and set up. 

When you have possessed yourself of all my affairs, 
I wish you to look out for a home for me and Mary 



68 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and William, and the kitten, who is now en pension. 
I wish you to get an unfurnished house, with as good 
a garden as may be, near Windsor Forest, and take a 
lease of it for fourteen or twenty-one years. The 
house must not be too small. I wish the situation to 
resemble as nearly as possible that of Bishopgate, and 
should think that Sunning Hill, or Winkfield Plain, 
or the neighborhood of Virginia Water, would afford 
some possibilities. 

My present intention is to return to England, and 
to make that most excellent of nations my perpetual 
resting-place. I think it is extremely probable that 
we shall return next spring, — perhaps before, per- 
haps after, — but certainly we shall return. 

On the motives and on the consequences of this 
journey, I reserve much explanation for some future 
winter walk or summer expedition. This much alone 
is certain, that before we return we shall have seen, 
and felt, and heard, a multiplicity of things which will 
haunt our talk, and make us a little better worth know- 
ing than we were before our departure. 

If possible we think of descending the Danube in 
a boat, of visiting Constantinople and Athens, then 
Rome and the Tuscan cities, and returning by the 
south of France, always following great rivers, — the 
Danube, the Po, the Rhone, and the Garonne. Riv- 
ers are not like roads, the work of the hands of man ; 
they imitate mind, which wanders at will over path- 
less deserts, and flows through nature's loveliest re- 
cesses, which are inaccessible to anything besides. 
They have the viler advantage also of affording a 
cheaper mode of conveyance. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 69 

This eastern scheme is one which has just seized on 
our imaginations. I fear that the detail of execution 
will destroy it. as all other wild and beautiful visions ; 
but at all events you will hear from us wherever we 
are, and to whatever adventures destiny enforces us. 

Tell me in return all English news. What has be- 
come of my poem? * I hope it has already sheltered 
itself in the bosom of its mother, Oblivion, from whose 
embraces no one could have been so barbarous as to 
tear it except me. 

Tell me of the political state of England, — its lit- 
erature, of which when I speak Coleridge is in my 
thoughts, — yourself; lastly, your own employments, 
your historical labors. 

I had written thus far when your letter to Mary 
dated the 8th arrived. What you say of Bishopsgate 
of course modifies that part of this letter which relates 
to it. I confess I did not learn the destined ruin 
without some pain, but it is well for me, perhaps, that 
a situation requiring so large an expense should be 
placed beyond our hopes. 

You must shelter my roofless Penates, dedicate 
some new temple to them, and perform the functions 
of a priest in my absence. They are innocent deities, 
and their worship neither sanguinary nor absurd. 

Leave Mammon and Jehovah to those who delight 
in wickedness and slavery, — their altars are stained 
with blood, or polluted with gold, the price of blood. 
But the shrines of the Penates are good wood fires, 
or window frames intertwined with creeping plants ; 
their hymns are the purring of kittens, the hissing of 

1 "Alas tor." 



70 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

kettles ; the long talks over the past and dead, the 
laugh of children, the warm wind of summer filling 
the quiet house, and the pelting storm of winter 
struggling in vain for entrance. In talking of the 
Penates, will you not liken me to Julius Caesar dedi- 
cating a temple to Liberty? As I have said in the 
former part of my letter, I trust entirely to your dis- 
cretion on the subject of a house. Certainly the 
Forest engages my preference, because of the sylvan 
nature of the place and the beasts with which it is 
filled. But I am not insensible to the beauties of the 
Thames, and any extraordinary eligibility of situa- 
tion you mention in your letter would overwhelm 
our habitual affection for the neighborhood of Bish- 
opsgate. 

Its proximity to the spot you have chosen is an 
argument with us in favor of the Thames. Recol- 
lect, however, we are now choosing a fixed, settled, 
eternal home, and as such its internal qualities will 
affect us more constantly than those which consist in 
the surrounding scenery, which, whatever it may be 
at first, will shortly be no more than the colors with 
which our own habits shall invest it. 

I am glad that circumstances do not permit the 
choice to be my own. I shall abide by yours, as oth- 
ers abide by the necessity of their birth. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 71 

XVIII. 

TO THOMAS L. PEACOCK. * 

Hotel de Londres, Chamouni,/^/?/ 22, 1816. 

Whilst you, my friend, are engaged in securing a 
home for us, we are wandering in search of recollec- 
tions to embellish it. I do not err in conceiving that 
you are interested in details of all that is majestic or 
beautiful in nature ; but how shall I describe to you 
the scenes by which I am now surrounded ? To ex- 
haust the epithets which express the astonishment and 
the admiration, — the very excess of satisfied aston- 
ishment, — where expectation scarcely acknowledged 
any boundary, is this to impress upon your mind the 
images which fill mine now, even till it overflow? I 
too have read the raptures of travellers ; I will be 
warned by their example ; I will simply detail to you 
all that I can relate, or all that, if related, would en- 
able you to conceive, what we have done or seen 
since the morning of the 20th, when we left Geneva. 

We commenced our intended journey to Chamouni 
at half past eight in the morning. We passed through 
the champagne country, which extends from Mont 
Saleve to the base of the higher Alps. The country 
is sufficiently fertile, covered with corn-fields and or- 
chards, and intersected by sudden acclivities with flat 
summits. The day was cloudless and excessively 

1 Compare this letter with his poem, " Mont Blanc/ 5 writ- 
ten July 23, 1816. 



72 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

hot, the Alps were perpetually in sight, and, as we 
advanced, the mountains, which form their outskirts, 
closed in around us. We passed a bridge over a 
stream, which discharges itself into the Arve. The 
Arve itself, much swollen by the rains, flows con- 
stantly to the right of the road. 

From Bonneville to Cluses the road conducts 
through a spacious and fertile plain, surrounded on 
all sides by mountains, covered like those of Meil- 
lerie with forests of intermingled pine and chestnut. 
At Cluses the road turns suddenly to the right, fol- 
lowing the Arve along the chasm, which it seems to 
have hollowed for itself among the perpendicular 
mountains. The scene assumes here a more savage 
and colossal character; the valley becomes narrow, 
affording no more space than is sufficient for the 
river and the road. The pines descend to the banks, 
imitating, with their irregular spires, the pyramidal 
crags, which lift themselves far above the regions of 
forest into the deep azure of the sky and among the 
white dazzling clouds. The scene, at the distance 
of half a mile from Cluses, differs from that of Mat- 
lock in little else than in the immensity of its pro- 
portions, and in its untamable inaccessible solitude, 
inhabited only by the goats which we saw browsing 
on the rocks. 

Near Maglans, within a league of each other, we 
saw two waterfalls. They were no more than moun- 
tain rivulets, but the height from which they fell, at 
least of twelve hundred feet, made them assume a 
character inconsistent with the small ness of their 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 73 

stream. The first fell from the overhanging brow of 
a black precipice on an enormous rock, precisely re- 
sembling some colossal Egyptian statue of a female 
deity. It struck the head of the visionary image, 
and, gracefully dividing there, fell from it in folds of 
foam more like to cloud than water, imitating a veil 
of the most exquisite woof. It then united, conceal- 
ing the lower part of the statue, and, hiding itself in 
a winding of its channel, burst into a deeper fall, and 
crossed our route in its path towards the Arve. 

The other waterfall was more continuous and larger. 
The violence with which it fell made it look more 
like some shape which an exhalation had assumed 
than like water, for it streamed beyond the mountain, 
which appeared dark behind it, as it might have ap- 
peared behind an evanescent cloud. 

The following morning we proceeded from St. 
Martin, on mules, to Chamouni, accompanied by 
two guides. We proceeded, as we had done the 
preceding day, along the valley of the Arve, — a val- 
ley surrounded on all sides by immense mountains, 
whose rugged precipices are intermixed on high with 
dazzling snow. Their bases were still covered with 
the eternal forests, which perpetually grew darker and 
more profound as we approached the inner regions 
of the mountains. 

On arriving at a small village at the distance of a 
league from St. Martin, we dismounted from our 
mules, and were conducted by our guides to view 
a cascade. We beheld an immense body of water fall 
two hundred and fifty feet, dashing from rock to rock, 



74 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and casting a spray which formed a mist around it, 
in the midst of which hung a multitude of sunbows, 
which faded or became unspeakably vivid as the in- 
constant sun shone through the clouds. When we 
approached near to it, the rain of the spray reached 
us, and our clothes were wetted by the quick-falling 
but minute particles of water. The cataract fell from 
above into a deep craggy chasm at our feet, where, 
changing its character to that of a mountain stream, 
it pursued its course towards the Arve, roaring over 
the rocks that impeded its progress. 

From Servos three leagues remain to Chamouni. 
Mont Blanc was before us ; the Alps, with their in- 
numerable glaciers on high all around, closing in the 
complicated windings of the single vale ; forests 
inexpressibly beautiful, but majestic in their beauty, 
intermingled beech and pine and oak, overshadowed 
our road, or receded, whilst lawns of such verdure 
as I have never seen before occupied these openings, 
and gradually became darker in their recesses. Mont 
Blanc was before us, but it was covered with cloud ; 
its base, furrowed with dreadful gaps, was seen above. 
Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright, part of the chain 
connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the clouds 
at intervals on high. I never knew — I never imag- 
ined — what mountains were before. The immensity 
of these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly 
burst upon the sight, a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, 
not unallied to madness. And remember this was all 
one scene, it all pressed home to our regard and our 
imagination. Though it embraced a vast extent of 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 75 

space, the snowy pyramids which shot into the bright 
blue sky seemed to overhang our path ; the ravine, 
clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth 
below, so deep that the very roaring of the untama- 
ble Arve, which rolled through it, could not be heard 
above ; — all was as much our own as if we had been 
the creators of such impressions in the minds of 
others as now occupied our own. Nature was the 
poet, whose harmony held our spirits more breathless 
than that of the divinest. 

As we entered the valley of Chamouni, (which, in 
fact, may be considered as a continuation of those 
which we have followed from Bonneville and Cluses,) 
clouds hung upon the mountains at the distance per- 
haps of 6,000 feet from the earth, but so as effectu- 
ally to conceal, not only Mont Blanc, but the other 
aiguilles, as they call them here, attached and sub- 
ordinate to it. We were travelling along the valley, 
when suddenly we heard a sound as of the burst of 
smothered thunder rolling above ; yet there was 
something in the sound that told us it could not be 
thunder. Our guide hastily pointed out to us a part 
of the mountain opposite, from whence the sound 
came. It was an avalanche. We saw the smoke of 
its path among the rocks, and continued to hear at 
intervals the bursting of its fall. It fell on the bed of 
a torrent, which it displaced, and presently we saw its 
tawny-colored waters also spread themselves over 
the ravine, which was their couch. 

We did not, as we intended, visit the Glacier des 
Bossons to-day, although it descends within a few 
minutes' walk of the road, wishing to survey it at 



76 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

least when unfatigued. We saw this glacier, which 
comes close to the fertile plain, as we passed. Its 
surface was broken into a thousand unaccountable 
figures; conical and pyramidical crystallizations, more 
than fifty feet in height, rise from its surface, and 
precipices of ice, of dazzling splendor, overhang 
the woods and meadows of the vale. This glacier 
winds upwards from the valley, until it joins the 
masses of frost from which it was produced above, 
winding through its own ravine like a bright belt 
flung over the black region of pines. There is more 
in all these scenes than mere magnitude of propor- 
tion : there is a majesty of outline ; there is an awful 
grace in the very colors which invest these wonderful 
shapes, — a charm which is peculiar to them, quite 
distinct even from the reality of their unutterable 
greatness. 

July 24. 

Yesterday morning we went to the source of the 
Arveiron. It is about a league from this village ; the 
river rolls forth impetuously from an arch of ice, and 
spreads itself in many streams over a vast space of 
the valley, ravaged and laid bare by its inundations. 
The glacier by which its waters are nourished over- 
hangs this cavern and the plain, and the forests of 
pine which surround it, with terrible precipices of 
solid ice. On the other side rises the immense glacier 
of Montanvert, fifty miles in extent, occupying a 
chasm among mountains of inconceivable height, 
and of forms so pointed and abrupt that they seem 
to pierce the sky. From this glacier we saw, as we 
sat on a rock close to one of the streams of the 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 77 

Arveiron, masses of ice detach themselves from on 
high, and rush with a loud dull noise into the vale. 
The violence of their fall turned them into powder, 
which flowed over the rocks in imitation of water- 
falls, whose ravines they usurped and filled. 

In the evening, I went with Ducr£e, my guide, the 
only tolerable person I have seen in this country, to 
visit the glacier of Bossons. This glacier, like that 
of Montanvert, comes close to the vale, overhanging 
the green meadows and the dark woods with the 
dazzling whiteness of its precipices and pinnacles, 
which are like spires of radiant crystal, covered with 
a network of frosted silver. These glaciers flow 
perpetually into the valley, ravaging in their slow 
but irresistible progress the pastures and the forests 
which surround them, performing a work of deso- 
lation in ages which a river of lava might accomplish 
in an hour, but far more irretrievably; for where 
the ice has once descended, the hardiest plant re- 
fuses to grow ; if even, as in some extraordinary 
instances, it should recede after its progress has once 
commenced. 

The verge of a glacier like that of Bossons pre- 
sents the most vivid image of desolation that it is 
possible to conceive. No one dares to approach it ; 
for the enormous pinnacles of ice which perpetually 
fall are perpetually reproduced. The pines of the 
forest, which bound it at one extremity, are over- 
thrown and shattered, to a wide extent, at its base. 
There is something inexpressibly dreadful in the 
aspect of the few branchless trunks, which, nearest to 



78 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

the ice rifts, still stand in the uprooted soil. The 
meadows perish, overwhelmed with sand and stones. 

I will not pursue Buffon's sublime but gloomy 
theory, — that this globe which we inhabit will, at 
some future period, be changed into a mass of frost 
by the encroachments of the polar ice, and of that 
produced on the most elevated points of the earth. 
Do you, who assert the supremacy of Ahriman, 
imagine him throned among these desolating snows, 
among these palaces of death and frost, so sculptured 
in this their terrible magnificence by the adamantine 
hand of necessity, and that he casts around him, as 
the first essays of his final usurpation, avalanches, 
torrents, rocks, and thunders, and, above all, these 
deadly glaciers, at once the proof and symbols of 
his reign? Add to this, the degradation of the 
human species, who, in these regions, are half de- 
formed or idiotic, and most of whom are deprived of 
anything that can excite interest or admiration. This 
is part of the subject more mournful and less sublime; 
but such as neither the poet nor the philosopher 
should disdain to regard. 

This morning we departed, on the promise of a 
fine day, to visit the glacier of Montanvert. In that 
part where it fills a slanting valley, it is called the Sea 
of Ice. This valley is 950 toises, or 7,600 feet, above 
the level of the sea. We had not proceded far before 
the rain began to fall, but we persisted until we had 
accomplished more than half of our journey, when 
we returned, wet through. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 79 

CHAMOUNI,y^/j/ 25. 

We have returned from visiting the glacier of 
Montanvert, or, as it is called, the Sea of Ice, a scene 
in truth of dizzying wonder. The path that winds to 
it along the side of a mountain, now clothed with 
pines, now intersected with snowy hollows, is wide 
and steep. The cabin of Montanvert is three leagues 
from Chamouni, half of which distance is performed 
on mules, not so sure-footed but that on the first day 
the one which I rode fell in what the guides call a 
mauvais pas, so that I narrowly escaped being pre- 
cipitated down the mountain. We passed over a 
hollow covered with snow, down which vast stones are 
accustomed to roll. One had fallen the preceding 
day, a little time after we had returned ; our guides 
desired us to pass quickly, for it is said that some- 
times the least sound will accelerate their descent. 
We arrived at Montanvert, however, safe. 

On all sides precipitous mountains, the abodes of 
unrelenting frost, surround this vale : their sides are 
banked up with ice and snow, broken, heaped high, 
and exhibiting terrific chasms. The summits are 
sharp and naked pinnacles, whose overhanging steep- 
ness will not even permit snow to rest upon them. 
Lines of dazzling ice occupy here and there their 
perpendicular rifts, and shine through the driving 
vapors with inexpressible brilliance ; they pierce the 
clouds, like things not belonging to this earth. The 
vale itself is filled with a mass of undulating ice, and 
has an ascent sufficiently gradual even to the remotest 
abysses of these horrible deserts. It is only half a 
league (about two miles) in breadth, and seems much 



So THE BEST LETTERS OF 

less. It exhibits an appearance as if frost had sud- 
denly bound up the waves and whirlpools of a mighty 
torrent. We walked some distance upon its surface. 
The waves are elevated about twelve or fifteen feet 
from the surface of the mass, which is intersected by 
long gaps of unfathomable depth, the ice of whose 
sides is more beautifully azure than the sky. In these 
regions everything changes, and is in motion. This 
vast mass of ice has one general progress, which 
ceases neither day nor night ; it breaks and bursts 
forever : some undulations sink while others rise ; it 
is never the same. The echo of rocks, or of the ice 
and snow which fall from their overhanging preci- 
pices, or roll from their aerial summits, scarcely 
ceases for one moment. One would think that Mont 
Blanc, like the god of the Stoics, was a vast animal, 
and that the frozen blood forever circulated through 
his stony veins. 

We dined (M , C , and I) on the grass, in 

the open air, surrounded by this scene. The air is 
piercing and clear. We returned down the moun- 
tain, sometimes encompassed by the driving vapors, 
sometimes cheered by the sunbeams, and arrived 
at our inn by seven o'clock. 

MONTALEG RE, />//?/ 28. 

The next morning we returned through the rain to 
St. Martin. The scenery had lost something of its 
immensity, thick clouds hanging over the highest 
mountains ; but visitings of sunlight intervened be- 
tween the showers, and the blue sky shone between 
the accumulated clouds of snowy whiteness which 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 8 1 

brought them ; the dazzling mountains sometimes 
glittered through a chasm of the clouds above our 
heads, and all the charm of its grandeur remained. 
We repassed Pont Pellisier, a wooden bridge over 
the Arve, and the ravine of the Arve. We repassed 
the pine forests which overhang the defile, the chateau 
of St. Michael, — a haunted ruin, built on the edge of 
a precipice, and shadowed over by the eternal forest. 
We repassed the vale of Servoz, a vale more beauti- 
ful, because more luxuriant, than that of Chamouni. 
Mont Blanc forms one of the sides of this vale also, 
and the other is enclosed by an irregular amphi- 
theatre of enormous mountains, one of which is in 
ruins, and fell fifty years ago into the higher part of 
the valley ; the smoke of its fall was seen in Pied- 
mont, and people went from Turin to investigate 
whether a volcano had not burst forth among the 
Alps. It continued falling many days, spreading, 
with the shock and thunder of its ruin, consterna- 
tion into the neighboring vales. In the evening we 
arrived at St. Martin. The next day we wound 
through the valley, which I have described before, 
and arrived in the evening at our home. 

We have bought some specimens of minerals and 
plants, and two or three crystal seals, at Mont Blanc, 
to preserve the remembrance of having approached 
it. There is a cabinet of histoire naturelle at Cha- 
mouni, just as at Keswick, Matlock, and Clifton \ 
the proprietor of which is the very vilest specimen of 
that vile species of quack, that, together with the 
whole army of aubergistes and guides, and indeed 
the entire mass of the population, subsist on the 

6 



82 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

weakness and credulity of travellers, as leeches subsist 
on the sick. The most interesting of my purchases 
is a large collection of all the seeds of rare alpine 
plants, with their names written upon the outside of 
the papers that contain them. These I mean to 
colonize in my garden in England, and to permit you 
to make what choice you please from them. They 
are companions which the Celandine — the classic 
Celandine — need not despise ; they are as wild and 
more daring than he, and will tell him tales of things 
even as touching and sublime as the gaze of a vernal 
poet. 



XIX. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 



I8l6. 



Will I own the " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty " ? 
I do not care, — as you like. And yet the poem was 
composed under the influence of feelings which agi- 
tated me even to tears, so that I think it deserves a 
better fate than being linked with so stigmatized and 
unpopular a name (so far as it is known) as mine. 
You will say that it is not thus, that I am morbidly 
sensitive to what I esteem the injustice of neglect. 
But I do not say that I am unjustly neglected. The 
oblivion which overtook my little attempt of " Alas- 
tor," I am ready to acknowledge, was sufficiently 
merited in itself; but then it was not accorded in 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 83 

the correct proportion, considering the success of 
the most contemptible drivellings. I am undeceived 
in the belief that I have powers deeply to interest, or 
substantially to improve mankind. How far my 
conduct and my opinions have rendered the zeal 
and ardor with which I have engaged in the attempt 
ineffectual, I know not. Self-love prompts me to 
assign much weight to a cause which perhaps has 
none. But thus much I do not seek to conceal 
from myself, that I am an outcast from human so- 
ciety ; my name is execrated by all who understand 
its entire import, — by those very beings whose hap- 
piness I ardently desire. I am an object of com- 
passion to a few more benevolent than the rest ; all 
else abhor and avoid me. With you, and perhaps 
some others (though in a less degree I fear), my 
gentleness and sincerity find favor, because they are 
themselves gentle and sincere ; they believe in self- 
devotion and generosity, because they are themselves 
generous and self-devoted. Perhaps I should have 
shrunk from persisting in the task which I had un- 
dertaken in early life, of opposing myself, in these 
evil times and among these evil tongues, to'what I 
esteem misery and vice, if I must have lived in the 
solitude of the heart. Fortunately my domestic 
circle encloses that within it which compensates for 
the loss. But these are subjects for conversation, 
and I find that, in using the privilege which you 
have permitted me of friendship, I have indulged in 
that quantity of self-love which only friendship can 
excuse or endure. 



84 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

XX. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 1 

London, December 15, 18 16. 
I have spent a day, my beloved, of somewhat 
agonizing sensations, such as the contemplation of 
vice and folly and hard-heartedness exceeding all 
conception must produce. Leigh Hunt has been 
with me all day, and his delicate and tender atten- 
tions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sus- 
tained me against the horror of this event. The 
children I have not got. I have seen Longdill, who 
recommends proceeding with the utmost caution and 
resoluteness ; he seems interested. I told him I was 
under contract of marriage to you, and he said that 
in such an event all pretence to detain the children 
would cease. Hunt said, very delicately, that this 
would be soothing intelligence to you. Yes, my 
only hope, my darling love, this will be one among 
the innumerable benefits which you will have be- 
stowed upon me, and which will still be inferior in 
value to the greatest of benefits, — yourself. 

How is Claire ? I do not tell her, but I may tell 
you, how deeply I am interested in her safety. I 
need not recommend her to your care. Give her 
any kind message from me, and calm her spirits as 

1 This letter was written during the progress of the suit 
for his children. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 85 

well as you can. I do not ask you to calm your 
own. 

I am well in health, though somewhat faint and 
agitated ; but the affectionate attentions shown me 
by Hunt have been sustainers and restoratives more 
than I can tell. Do you, dearest and best, seek 
happiness — where it ought to reside — in your 
own pure and perfect bosom ; in the thoughts of 
how dear and how good you are to me \ how wise 
and how extensively beneficial you are perhaps now 
destined to become. Remember my poor babes, 
Ianthe and Charles. How tender and dear a 
mother they will find in you ! — darling William, too. 
My eyes overflow with tears. To-morrow I will 
write again. 



XXL 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

[MarlowJ March 9, 18 1 7. 
I wish you knew me better than to be ' vexed 
or disappointed at anything I do. Either circum- 
stances of petty difficulty and embarrassment find 
some peculiar attraction in me, or I have a fainter 
power of repulsion in regard to them. Certain it is 
that nothing gives me serener and more pure pleas- 
ure than your society, and that if, in breaking an 
engagement with you, I have forced an exercise of 
your philosophy upon you, I have in my own person 
incurred a penalty which mine has not yet taught me 



S6 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

to alleviate. . . . We are immersed in all kind of con- 
fusion here. Mary said you meant to come hither 
soon enough to see the leaves come out. Which 
leaves do you mean, for the wild-briar buds are al- 
ready unfolded ? And what of " Mandeville," 1 and 
how will he bear to be transplanted here? All my 
people, little Willy not excepted, desire their kindest 
love to you. I beg to unite in kind remembrances 
to Mrs. Godwin, whose health is, I hope, improved. 



XXII. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Marlow, March 22, 1817. 

It was spring when I wrote to you, and winter 
when your answer arrived. But the frost is very tran- 
sitory ; every bud is ready to burst into leaf. It is a 
wise distinction you make between the development 
and the complete expansion of the leaves. The oak 
and the chestnut, the latest and earliest parents of 
foliage, would afford you a still subtler subdivision, 
which would enable you to defer the visit from which 
we expect so much delight for six weeks. I hope we 
shall really see you before that time, and that you 
will allow the chestnut, or any other impartial tree, as 
he stands in the foreground, to be considered as a 
virtual representation of the rest. Will is quite well 

1 Godwin's novel. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 87 

and very beautiful Mary unites with me in present- 
ing her kind remembrances to Mrs. Godwin, and begs 
her most affectionate love to you. 



XXIII. 

TO MR. AND MRS. LEIGH HUNT. 

Great Marlow, June 29, 18 17. 

My dear Friends, — I performed my promise, and 
arrived here the night after I set off. Everybody up 
to this minute has been and continues well. I ought 
to have written yesterday, for to-day, I know not how, 
I have so constant a pain in my side, and such a 
depression of strength and spirits, as to make my 
holding the pen whilst I w T rite to you an almost in- 
tolerable exertion. This, you know, with me is tran- 
sitory. Do not mention that I am unwell to your 
nephew ; for the advocate of a new system of diet is 
held bound to be invulnerable by disease, in the same 
manner as the sectaries of a new system of religion 
are held to be more moral than other people, or as a 
reformed Parliament must at least be assumed as 
the remedy of all political evils. No one will change 
the diet, adopt the religion, or reform the Parliament 
else. 

Well, I am very anxious to hear how you get on, 
and I entreat Marianne to excite Hunt not to delay 
a minute in writing the necessary letters, and in in- 
forming me of the result. Kings are only to be ap- 



88 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

proached through their ministers ; who, indeed, as 
Marianne shall know to her cost, if she don't take 
care, are responsible not only for all their commis- 
sions, but, a more dreadful responsibility, for all their 
omissions. And I know not who has a right to the title 
of king, if not, according to the Stoics, he to whom 
the King of kings had delegated the prerogative of 
lord of the creation. 

Let me know how Henry gets on, and make 
my best respects to your brother and Mrs. Hunt. 
Adieu. 



XXIV. 

TO A PUBLISHERS 

13 Lisson Grove North, October 13, 1817. 
I send you the first four sheets of my poem en- 
titled "Laon and Cyntha, or the Revolution of the 
Golden City." I believe this commencement affords 
a sufficient specimen of the work. I am conscious, 
indeed, that some of the concluding cantos, when 
" the plot thickens," and human passions are brought 
into more critical situations of development, are 
written with more energy and clearness ; and that to 
see a work of which unity is one of the qualifications 
aimed at by the author in a disjointed state is, in a 
certain degree, unfavorable to the general impression. 
If, however, you submit it to Mr. Moore's judgment, 
he will make due allowance for these circumstances - 

1 Probably Longman & Co. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 89 

The whole poem, with the exception of the first 
canto and part of the last, is a mere human story, 
without the smallest intermixture of supernatural 
interference. The first canto is indeed in some 
measure a distinct poem, though very necessary to 
the wholeness of the work. I say this because, if it 
were all written in the manner of the first canto, I 
could not expect that it would be interesting to any 
great number of people. I have attempted in the 
progress of my work to speak to the common elemen- 
tary emotions of the human heart, so that, though it 
is the story of violence and revolution, it is relieved 
by milder pictures of friendship and love and natu- 
ral affection. The scene is supposed to be laid in 
Constantinople and Modern Greece, but without 
much attempt at minute delineation of Mahometan 
manners. It is, in fact, a tale illustrative of such a 
revolution as might be supposed to take place in a 
European nation, acted upon by the opinions of 
what has been called the modern philosophy, and 
contending with ancient notions, and the supposed 
advantage derived from them to those who support 
them. It is a revolution of this kind that is the beau 
ideal, as it were, of the French Revolution, but pro- 
duced by the influence of individual genius, and out 
of general knowledge. The authors of it are sup- 
posed to be my hero and heroine, whose names ap- 
pear in the title. My private friends have expressed 
to me a very high, and therefore, I do not doubt, 
a very erroneous, judgment of my work. However, 
of this I can determine neither way. I have resolved 
to give it a fair chance, and my wish therefore is, 



90 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

first, to know whether you would purchase my interest 
in the copyright, — an arrangement which, if there be 
any truth in the opinions of my friends Lord Byron 
and Mr. Leigh Hunt of my powers, cannot be dis- 
advantageous to you ; and, in the second place, how 
far you are willing to be the publisher of it on my 
own account, if such an arrangement, which I should 
infinitely prefer, cannot be made. I rely, however, 
on your having the goodness at least to send the 
sheets to Mr. Moore, and ask his opinion of their 
merits. 



XXV. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Marlow, December 7, 18 17. 

My health has been materially worse. My feelings 
at intervals are of a deadly and torpid kind, or 
awakened to a state of such unnatural and keen ex- 
citement, that, only to instance the organ of sight, I 
find the very blades of grass and the boughs of dis- 
tant trees present themselves to me with microscop- 
ical distinctness. Towards evening, I sink into a 
state of lethargy and inanimation, and often remain 
for hours on the sofa, between sleep and waking, a 
prey to the most painful irritability of thought. Such, 
with little intermission, is my condition. The hours 
devoted to study are selected with vigilant caution 
from among these periods of endurance. It is not for 
this that I think of travelling to Italy, even if I knew 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 91 

that Italy would relieve rne. But I have experienced 
a decisive pulmonary attack ; and, although at pres- 
ent it has passed away without any very considerable 
vestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently 
shows the true nature of my disease to be consump- 
tion. It is to my advantage that this malady is in its 
nature slow, and, if one is sufficiently alive to its ad- 
vances, is susceptible of cure from a warm climate. 
In the event of its assuming any decided shape, it 
would be my duty to go to Italy without delay • and 
it is only when that measure becomes an indispen- 
sable duty that, contrary to both Mary's feelings and 
to mine, as they regard you, I shall go to Italy. I 
need not remind you (besides the mere pain endured 
by the survivors) of the train of evil consequences 
which my death would cause to ensue. I am thus 
circumstantial and explicit, because you seem to have 
misunderstood me. It is not health, but life, that I 
should seek in Italy ; and that not for my own sake, 
— I feel that I am capable of trampling on all such 
weaknesses, — but for the sake of those to whom my 
life may be a source of happiness, utility, security, 
and honor, and to some of whom my death might be 
all that is the reverse. 

I ought to say I cannot persevere in the meat diet. 
What you say of Malthus fills me, as far as my in- 
tellect is concerned, with life and strength. I believe 
that I have a most anxious desire that the time should 
quickly come that, even so far as you are personally 
concerned, you should be tranquil and independent. 
But when I consider the intellectual lustre with which 
you clothe this world, and how much the last genera- 



92 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

tion of mankind may be benefited by that light flow- 
ing forth without the intervention of one shadow, I 
am elevated above all thoughts which tend to you or 
myself as an individual, and become, by sympathy, 
part of those distant and innumerable minds to whom 
your writings must be present. 

I meant to have written to you about " Mande- 
ville " 1 solely ; but I was so irritable and weak that I 
could not write, although I thought I had much to say. 
I have read Mandeville, but I must read it again soon, 
for the interest is of that irresistible and overwhelming 
kind, that the mind in its influence is like a cloud 
borne on by an impetuous wind, — like one breath- 
lessly carried forward, who has no time to pause or 
observe the causes of his career. I think the power 
of Mandeville is inferior to nothing you have done ; 
and, were it not for the character of Falkland, 2 no 
instance in which you have exerted that power of 
creation which you possess beyond all contemporary, 
writers might compare with it. Falkland is still 
alone ; power is, in Falkland, not, as in Mandeville, 
tumult hurried onward by the tempest, but tranquillity 
standing unshaken amid its fiercest rage. But " Caleb 
Williams " never shakes the deepest soul like Man- 
deville. It must be said of the latter, you rule with a 
rod of iron. The picture is never bright; and we 
wonder whence you drew the darkness with which its 
shades are deepened, until the epithet of tenfold 
might almost cease to be a metaphor. The noun 
smorfia touches some cord within us, with such a 

1 Godwin's novel. 

2 In " Caleb Williams," by Godwin. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 93 

cold and jarring power, that I started, and for some 
time could scarce believe but that I was Mandeville, 
and that this hideous grin was stamped upon my own 
face. In style and strength of expression, Mande- 
ville is wonderfully great, and the energy and the 
sweetness of the sentiments scarcely to be equalled. 
Clifford's character, as mere beauty, is a divine and 
soothing contrast ; and I do not think — if, perhaps, 
I except (and I know not if I ought to do so) the 
speech of Agathon in the " Symposium " of Plato — 
that there ever was produced a moral discourse more 
characteristic of all that is admirable and lovely in 
human nature, more lovely and admirable in itself, 
than that of Henrietta to Mandeville, as he is re- 
covering from madness. Shall I say that, when I dis- 
covered that she was pleading all this time sweetly 
for her lover, and when at last she weakly abandoned 
poor Mandeville, I felt an involuntary, and perhaps 
an unreasonable pang? Adieu ! 



XXVI. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Marlow, December 11, 1817. 
I have read and considered all that you say about 
my general powers, and the particular instance of the 
poem in which I have attempted to develop them. 
Nothing can be more satisfactory to me than the in- 
terest which your admonitions express. But I think 
you are mistaken in some points with regard to the 



94 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

peculiar nature of my powers, whatever be their 
amount. I listened with deference and self- suspicion 
to your censures of " Laon and Cythna " ; but the 
productions of mine which you commend hold a very 
low place in my own esteem, and this reassured me, 
in some degree at least. The poem was produced 
by a series of thoughts which filled my mind with un- 
bounded and sustained enthusiasm. I felt the pre- 
cariousness of my life, and I resolved in this book to 
leave some records of myself. Much of what the 
volume contains was written with the same feeling, 
as real, though not so prophetic, as the communica- 
tions of a dying man. I never presumed, indeed, 
to consider it anything approaching to faultless ; but 
when I considered contemporary productions of the 
same apparent pretensions, I will own that I was 
filled with confidence. I felt that it was in many 
respects a genuine picture of my own mind. I felt 
that the sentiments were true, not assumed ; and in 
this have I long believed, — that my power consists 
in sympathy, and that part of imagination which 
relates to sentiment and contemplation. I am 
formed, if for anything not in common with the herd 
of mankind, to apprehend minute and remote distinc- 
tions of feeling, whether relative to external nature 
or the living beings which surround us, and to com- 
municate the conceptions which result from consid- 
ering either the moral or the material universe as a 
whole. . . . Yet, after all, I cannot but be conscious, 
in much of what I write, of an absence of that tran- 
quillity which is the attribute and accompaniment of 
power. This feeling alone would make your most 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 95 

kind and wise admonitions on the subject of the 
economy of intellectual force valuable to me. And 
if I live, or if I see any trust in coming years, doubt 
not but that I shall do something, whatever it might 
be, which a serious and earnest estimate of my pow- 
ers will suggest to me, and which will be in every 
respect accommodated to their utmost limits. 



XXVII. 

TO CHARLES OLLIER. 

Marlow, December 11, 18 17, 

Dear Sir, — It is to be regretted that you did 
not consult your own safety and advantage (if you 
consider it connected with the non-publication of my 
book 1 ) before your declining the publication, after 
having accepted it, would have operated to so exten- 
sive and serious an injury to my views as now. The 
instances of abuse and menace which you cite were 
such as you expected, and were, as I conceived, 
prepared for. If not, it would have been just to me 
to have given them their due weight and considera- 
tion before. You foresaw, you foreknew, all that 
these people would say. You do your best to con- 
demn my book before it is given forth, because you 
publish it, and then withdraw ; so that no other 

1 " Laon and Cythna." Oilier feared the effect it would 
have on account of its radical character. Shelley afterwards 
revised it, and it was published as " The Revolt of Islam." 



g6 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

bookseller will publish it, because one has already 
rejected it. You must be aware of the great injury 
which you prepare for me. If I had never consulted 
your advantage, my book would have had a fair hear- 
ing. But now it is first published, and then the 
publisher — as if the author had deceived him as to 
the contents of the work, and as if the inevitable con- 
sequence of its publication would be ignominy and 
punishment, and as if none should dare to touch 
it or look at it — retracts, at a period when nothing 
but the most extraordinary and unforeseen circum- 
stances can justify his retraction. 

I beseech you to reconsider the matter, for your 
sake no less than for my own. Assume the high and 
secure ground of courage. The people who visit 
your shop, and the wretched bigot who gave his 
worthless custom to some other bookseller, are not 
the public. The public respect talent ; and a large 
portion of them are already undeceived with regard 
to the prejudices which my book attacks. You 
would lose some customers, but you would gain 
others. Your trade would be diverted into a chan- 
nel more consistent with your own principles. Not 
to say that a publisher is in no wise pledged to all 
the opinions of his publications, or to any ; and that 
he may enter his protest, with each copy sold, either 
against the truth or the discretion of the principles 
of the books he sells. But there is a much more 
important consideration in the case. You are, and 
have been to a certain extent, the publisher. I don't 
believe that, if the book was quietly and regularly 
published, the Government would touch anything 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 97 

of a character so refined, and so remote from the 
conceptions of the vulgar. They would hesitate 
before they invaded a member of the higher circles 
of the republic of letters. But if they see us trem- 
ble, they will make no distinctions ; they will feel 
their strength. You might bring the arm of the law 
down upon us by flinching now. Directly these 
scoundrels see that people are afraid of them, they 
seize upon them and hold them up to mankind as 
criminals already convicted by their own fears. You 
lay yourself prostrate, and they trample on you. 
How glad they would be to seize on any connection 
of Hunt's by this most powerful of all their arms, — 
the terrors and self-condemnation of their victim. 
Read all the ex officio cases, and see what reward 
booksellers and printers have received for their 
submission. 

If, contrary to common sense and justice, you 
resolve to give me up, you shall receive no detriment 
from a connection with me in small matters, though 
you determine to inflict so serious a one on me in 
great. You shall not be at a farthing's expense. I 
shall still, so far as my powers extend, do my best 
to promote your interest. On the contrary supposi- 
tion, even admitting you derive no benefit from the 
book itself, — and it should be my care that you 
shall do so, — I hold myself ready to make ample 
indemnity for any loss you may sustain. 

There is one compromise you might make, though 
that would be still injurious to me. Sherwood and 
Neely wished to be the principal publishers. Call 
on them, and say that it was through a mistake 

7 



9§ THE BEST LETTERS OF 

that you undertook the principal direction of the 
book, as it was my wish that it should be theirs, and 
that I have written to you to that effect. This, if it 
would be advantageous to you, would be detrimental 
to, but not utterly destructive of, my views. To with- 
draw your name entirely would be to inflict on me a 
bitter and undeserved injury. 

Let me hear from you by return of post. I hope 
that you will be influenced to fulfil your engagement 
with me, and proceed with the publication, as justice 
to me, and, indeed, a well understood estimate of 
your own interest and character, demand. I do 
hope that you will have too much regard to the well 
chosen motto of your seal 1 to permit the murmurs of 
a few bigots to outweigh the serious and permanent 
considerations presented in this letter. To their re- 
monstrances you have only to reply, " I did not write 
the book ; I am not responsible ; here is the author's 
address, — state your objections to him. I do no 
more than sell it to tnose who inquire for it ; and, if 
they are not pleased with their bargain, the author 
empowers me to receive the book and to return the 
money." As to the interference of Government, 
nothing is more improbable than that in any case it 
would be attempted ; but if it should, it would be 
owing entirely to your perseverance in the ground- 
less apprehensions which dictated your communica- 
tion received this day, and conscious terror would be 
perverted into an argument of guilt. 

I have just received a most kind and encouraging 
letter from Mr. Moore on the subject of my poem. 

1 " In omnibus libertas." 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 99 

I have the fairest chance of the public approaching 
my work with unbiased and unperverted feeling : 
the fruit of reputation (and you know for what pur- 
poses I value it) is within my reach. It is for you, 
now you have been once named as publisher, and 
have me in your power, to blast all this, and to hold 
up my literary character in the eye of mankind as that 
of a proscribed and rejected outcast. And for no 
evil that I have ever done you, but in return for a 
preference which, although you falsely now esteem 
injurious to you, was solicited by Hunt, and conferred 
by me, as a source and a proof of nothing but kind 
intentions. 

Dear Sir, I remain your sincere well-wisher. 



XXVIII. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Lyons, March 22, 1818. 

My dear Friend, — Why did you not wake me 
that night before we left England, you and Marianne ? 
I take this as rather an unkind piece of kindness in 
you ; but which, in consideration of the six hundred 
miles between us, I forgive. 

We have journeyed towards the spring, that has 
been hastening to meet us from the south \ and 
though our weather was at first abominable, we have 
now warm sunny days, and soft winds, and a sky of 
deep azure, the most serene I ever saw. The heat in 
this city to-day is like that of London in the midst 



IOO THE BEST LETTERS OF 

of summer. My spirits and health sympathize in the 
change. Indeed, before I left London, my spirits 
were as feeble as my health, and I had demands 
on them which I found it difficult to supply. I 
have read " Foliage " ; with most of the poems I 
am already familiar. What a delightful poem the 
" Nymphs " is ! It is truly poetical, in the intense 
and emphatic sense of the word. If six hundred 
miles were not between us, I should say what pity 
that glib was not omitted, and that the poem is not 
as faultless as it is beautiful. But' for fear I should 
spoil your next poem, I will not let slip a word upon 
the subject. 

Give my love to Marianne and her sister, and tell 
Marianne she defrauded me of a kiss by not waking 
me when she went away, and that, as I have no 
better mode of conveying it, I must take the best, 
and ask you to pay the debt. When shall I see you 
again ? Oh that it might be in Italy ! I confess that 
the thought of how long we may be divided makes 
me very melancholy. Adieu, my dear friends. Write 
soon. 



XXIX. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

My dear P., — Behold us arrived at the end of 
our journey, — that is, within a few miles of it, — 
because we design to spend the summer on the 
shore of the Lake of Como. Our journey was some- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 101 

what painful from the cold, and in no other manner 
interesting until we passed the Alps : of course I ex- 
cept the Alps themselves ; but no sooner had we ar- 
rived at Italy than the loveliness of the earth and the 
serenity of the sky made the greatest difference in 
my sensations. I depend on these things for life ; 
for in the smoke of cities, and the tumult of human 
kind, and the chilling fogs and rain of our own coun- 
try, I can hardly be said to live. With what delight 
did I hear the woman, who conducted us to see the 
triumphal arch of Augustus at Susa, speak the clear 
and complete language of Italy, though half unintelli- 
gible to me, after that nasal and abbreviated cacoph- 
ony of the French ! A ruined arch of magnificent 
proportions in the Greek taste, standing in a kind of 
road of green lawn, overgrown with violets and prim- 
roses, and in the midst of stupendous mountains, 
and a blonde woman, of light and graceful manners, 
something in the style of Fuseli's Eve, were the first 
things we met in Italy. 

This city is very agreeable. We went to the opera 
last night, — which is a most splendid exhibition. 
The opera itself was not a favorite, and the singers 
very inferior to our own. But the ballet, or rather a 
kind of melodrame or pantomimic drama, was the 
most splendid spectacle I ever saw. We have no 
Miss Melanie here, — in every other respect Milan 
is unquestionably superior. The manner in which 
language is translated into gesture, the complete and 
full effect of the whole as illustrating the history in 
question, the unaffected self-possession of each of 
the actors, even to the children, made this choral 



102 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

drama more impressive than I could have conceived 
possible. The story is " Othello," and, strange to 
say, it left no disagreeable impression. 

I write, but I am not in the humor to write, and 
you must expect longer, if not more entertaining, 
letters soon ; — that is, in a week or so, when I am a 
little recovered from my journey. Pray tell us all the 
news with regard to our own offspring, whom we left 
at nurse in England, as well as those of our friends. 
Mention Cobbett and politics too, — and Hunt, to 
whom Mary is now writing, — and particularly your 
own plans and yourself. You shall hear more of me 
and my plans soon. My health is improved already, 
and my spirits something; and I have many liter- 
ary schemes, and one in particular, which I thirst 
to be settled that I may begin. I have ordered 
Oilier to send you some sheets, etc., for revision. 
Adieu. 



XXX. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Milan, April 20, 18 18. 
My dear P., — I had no conception that the dis- 
tance between us, measured by time in respect of 
letters, was so great. I have but just received yours 
dated the 2d, — and when you will receive mine, 
written from this city somewhat later than the same 
date, I cannot know. I am sorry to hear that you 
have been obliged to remain at Marlow, a certain 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 103 

degree of society being almost a necessity of life, 
particularly as we are not to see you this summer in 
Italy. But this, I suppose, must be as it is. I often 
revisit Mario w in thought. The curse of this life is. 
that whatever is once known can never be unknown. 
You inhabit a spot which before you inhabit it is as 
indifferent to you as any other spot upon earth, and 
when, persuaded by some necessity, you think to 
leave it, you leave it not ; it clings to you, and 
with memories of things which, in your experience of 
them, gave no such promise, revenges your desertion. 
Time flows on, places are changed ■ friends who 
were with us are no longer with us ; yet what has 
been seems yet to be, but barren and stripped of 
life. See, I have sent you a study for " Nightmare 
Abbey." 1 

Since I last wrote to you we have been to Como, 
looking for a house. This lake exceeds anything I 
ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the ar- 
butus islands of Killarney. It is long and narrow, 
and has the appearance of a mighty river winding 
among the mountains and the forests. We sailed 
from the town of Como to a tract of country called 
the Tremezina, and saw the various aspects presented 
by that part of the lake. The mountains between 
Como and that village, or rather cluster of villages, 
are covered on high with chestnut forests (the eating 
chestnuts, on which the inhabitants of the country 
subsist in time of scarcity), which sometimes descend 
to the very verge of the lake, overhanging it with 
their hoary branches. But usually the immediate 

1 Peacock's novel, in course of preparation at this time. 



104 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

border of this shore is composed of laurel trees, and 
bay, and myrtle, and wild fig trees, and olives which 
grow in the crevices o: the rocks, and overhang the 
caverns, and shadow the deep glens, which are filled 
with the flashing light of the waterfalls. Other flow- 
ering shrubs, which I cannot name, grow there also. 
On high, the towers of village churches are seen 
white among the dark forests. Beyond, on the op- 
posite shore, which faces the south, the mountains 
descend less precipitously to the lake, and although 
they are much higher, and some covered with per- 
petual snow, there intervenes between them and the 
lake a range of lower hills, which have glens and rifts 
opening to the other, such as I should fancy the 
abysses of Ida or Parnassus. Here are plantations of 
olive, and orange, and lemon trees, — which are now 
so loaded with fruit that there is more fruit than 
leaves, — and vineyards. This shore of the lake is 
one continued village, and the Milanese nobility have 
their villas here. The union of culture and the un- 
tamable profusion and loveliness of nature is here so 
close, that the line where they are divided can hardly 
be discovered. But the finest scenery is that of the 
Villa Pliniana ; so called from a fountain which ebbs 
and flows every three hours, described by the younger 
Pliny, which is in the courtyard. This house, which 
was once a magnificent palace, and is now half in 
ruins, we are endeavoring to procure. It is built 
upon terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, 
together with its garden, at the foot of a semicir- 
cular precipice, overshadowed by profound forests of 
chestnut. The scene from the colonnade is the most 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 105 

extraordinary at once and the most lovely that eye 
ever beheld. On one side is the mountain, and im- 
mediately over you are clusters of cypress trees of an 
astonishing height, which seem to pierce the sky. 
Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, de- 
scends a waterfall of immense size, broken by the 
woody rocks into a thousand channels to the lake. 
On the other side is seen the blue extent of the lake 
and the mountains, speckled with sails and spires. 
The apartments of the Pliniana are immensely large, 
but ill furnished and antique. The terraces, which 
overlook the lake, and conduct under the shade of 
such immense laurel trees as deserve the epithet of 
Pythian, are most delightful. We stayed at Como 
two days, and have now returned to Milan, waiting 
the issue of our negotiation about a house. Como is 
only six leagues from Milan, and its mountains are 
seen from the cathedral. 

This cathedral is a most astonishing work of art. 
It is built of white marble, and cut into pinnacles of 
immense height and the utmost delicacy of workman- 
ship, and loaded with sculpture. The effect of it, 
piercing the solid blue with those groups of dazzling 
spires, relieved by the serene depth of this Italian 
heaven, or by moonlight, when the stars seem gathered 
among those clustered shapes, is beyond anything I 
had imagined architecture capable of producing. 
The interior, though very sublime, is of a more 
earthly character, and with its stained glass and massy 
granite columns overloaded with antique figures, and 
the silver lamps, that burn forever under the canopy 
of black cloth beside the brazen altar and the marble 



106 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

fretwork of the dome, give it the aspect of some gor- 
geous sepulchre. There is one solitary spot among 
those aisles, behind the altar, where the light of day 
is dim and yellow under the storied window, which I 
have chosen to visit, and read Dante there. 

I have devoted this summer, and indeed the next 
year, to the composition of a tragedy on the subject 
of Tasso's madness, which I find upon inspection is, 
if properly treated, admirably dramatic and poetical. 
But, you will say, I have no dramatic talent ; very 
true, in a certain sense ; but I have taken the resolu- 
tion to see what kind of a tragedy a person without 
dramatic talent could write. It shall be better moral- 
ity than u Fazio/' and better poetry than " Bertram," 
at least. You tell me nothing of " Rhododaphne," a 
book from which, I confess, I expected extraordinary 
success. 1 

Who lives in my house at M arlow now, or what is 
to be done with it? I am seriously persuaded that 
the situation was injurious to my health, or I should 
be tempted to feel a very absurd interest in who is 
to be its next possessor. The expense of our jour- 
ney here has been very considerable ; but we are 
now living at the hotel here, in a kind of Pension, 
which is very reasonable in respect of price, and when 
we get into a menage of our own, we have every 
reason to expect that we shall experience something 
of the boasted cheapness of Italy. The finest bread, 
made of a sifted flour, the whitest and the best I 
ever tasted, is only one English penny a pound. All 

1 Peacock had just published this book, which, however, 
did not meet with the success Shelley anticipated. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 107 

the necessaries of life bear a proportional relation to 
this. But then the luxuries, tea, etc., are very dear; 
and the English, as usual, are cheated in a way 
that is quite ridiculous, if they have not their wits 
about them. We do not know a single human be- 
ing, and the opera, until last night, has been always 
the same. Lord Byron, we hear, has taken a house 
for three years, at Venice ; whether we shall see him 
or not, I do not know. The number of English who 
pass through this town is very great. They ought to 
be in their own country in the present crisis. Their 
conduct is wholly inexcusable. The people here, 
though inoffensive enough, seem both in body and 
soul a miserable race. The men are hardly men; 
they look like a tribe of stupid and shrivelled slaves, 
and I do not think that I have seen a gleam of in- 
telligence in the countenance of man since I passed 
the Alps. The women in enslaved countries are 
always better than the men ; but they have tight- 
laced figures, and figures and mien which express 
(Oh how unlike the French !) a mixture of the co- 
quette and prude, which reminds me of the worst 
characteristics of the English. Everything but hu- 
manity is in much greater perfection here than in 
France. The cleanliness and comfort of the inns is 
something quite English. The country is beautifully 
cultivated ; and altogether, if you can, as one ought 
always to do, find your happiness in yourself, it is a 
most delightful and commodious place to live in. 
Adieu. 



108 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

XXXI. 

TO HORACE SMITH.* 

Milan, April 30, 18 18. 
I received your note a few hours before I left 
England, and have designed to write to you from 
every town on the route ; but the difficulty, not so 
much of knowing what to say as how to say it, pre- 
vented me till this moment. I was sorry that I did 
not see you again before my departure. On my re- 
turn, which will not perhaps take place so soon as I 
at first expected, we shall meet again ; meanwhile my 
letters to Hunt and Peacock are, as it were, common 
property, of which, if you feel any curiosity about 
me which I neglect to satisfy myself, you are at 
liberty to avail yourself of. To-morrow we leave this 
city for Pisa, where, or in its neighborhood, we shall 
remain during the summer. 

We have been to the Lake of Como, and indeed 
had some thought of taking our residence there for 
the summer. The scenery is very beautiful, abound- 
ing among other things with those green banks for 
the sake of which you represented me as wandering 
over the world. You are more interested in the 
human part of the experience of travelling ; a thing 
of which I see little and understand less, and which, 

1 There is some doubt as to whom this letter was ad- 
dressed. Professor Dowden gives it as his opinion that it 
was Horace Smith. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 109 

if I saw and understood more, I fear I should be 
little able to describe. I am just reading a novel of 
Wieland's called " Aristippus," which I think you 
would like. It is very Greek, although perhaps not 
religious enough for a true pagan. If you can get it 
otherwise do not read it in the French translation, as 
the impudent translator has omitted much of the 
original, to accommodate it, as he says, to the " fas- 
tidious taste and powerful understanding of his coun- 
trymen." 

I have read some Greek, but not much, on my 
journey, — two or three plays of Euripides, and 
among them the "Ion," which you praised, and 
which I think is exquisitely beautiful. But I have 
now made some Italian book my companion from 
my [wish] to learn the language, so as to speak it. 
I have been studying the history of Tasso's life, with 
some idea of making a drama of his adventures and 
misfortunes. 



XXXII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Livorno, y"z/7z^ 5, 1818. 
My dear P., — We have not heard from you since 
the middle of April ; that is, we have received only 
one letter from you since our departure from Eng- 
land. It necessarily follows that some accident has 
intercepted them. Address, in future, to the care 
of Mr. Gisborne, Livorno, and I shall receive them, 



HO THE BEST LETTERS OF 

though sometimes somewhat circuitously, yet always 
securely. 

We left Milan on the ist of May, and travelled 
across the Apennines to Pisa. This part of the 
Apennines is far less beautiful than the Alps ; the 
mountains are wide and wild, and the whole scenery 
broad and undetermined, — the imagination cannot 
find a home in it. The Plain of the Milanese, and 
that of Parma, is exquisitely beautiful, — it is like one 
garden, or rather cultivated wilderness ; because the 
corn and the meadow-grass grow under high and 
thick trees, festooned to one another by regular fes- 
toons of vines. On the seventh day we arrived at 
Pisa, where we remained three or four days. A large 
disagreeable city, almost without inhabitants. We 
then proceeded to this great trading town, where we 
have remained a month, and which in a few days we 
leave for the Bagni di Lucca, a kind of watering-place 
situated in the depth of the Apennines ; the scenery 
surrounding this village is very fine. 

We have made some acquaintance with a very ami- 
able and accomplished lady, Mrs. Gisborne, who is 
the sole attraction in this most unattractive of cities. 
We had no idea of spending a month here, but she 
has made it even agreeable. We shall see something 
of Italian society at the Bagni di Lucca, where the 
most fashionable people resort. 

I write as if writing where perhaps my letter may 
never arrive. 

With every good wish from all of us, believe me 
most sincerely yours. 



PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE Y. Ill 

XXXIII. 
TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE. 

Bagki di Lucca, July 10, 1818. 

You cannot know, as some friends in England do, 
to whom my silence is still more inexcusable, that this 
silence is no proof of forgetfulness or neglect. 

I have, in truth, nothing to say, but that I shall be 
happy to see you again, and renew our delightful 
walks, until the desire or the duty of seeing new 
things hurries us away. We have spent a month here 
in our accustomed solitude, with the exception of 
one night at the Casino ; and the choice society of 
all ages, which I took care to pack up in a large trunk 
before we left England, have revisited us here. I am 
employed just now, having little better to do, in trans- 
lating into my faint and inefficient periods the divine 
eloquence of Plato's "Symposium" ; only as an ex- 
ercise, or, perhaps, to give Mary some idea of the 
manners and feelings of the Athenians, — so different 
on many subjects from that of any other community 
that ever existed. 

We have almost finished Ariosto, — who is enter- 
taining and graceful, and sometiines a poet. Forgive 
me, worshippers of a more equal and tolerant divin- 
ity in poetry, if Ariosto pleases me less than you. 
Where is the gentle seriousness, the delicate sensibil- 
ity, the calm and sustained energy, without which true 
greatness cannot be? He is so cruel, too, in his 



112 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

descriptions ; his most prized virtues are vices almost 
without disguise. He constantly vindicates and em- 
bellishes revenge in its grossest form, — the most 
deadly superstition that ever infested the world. 
How different from the tender and solemn enthusi- 
asm of Petrarch, — or even the delicate moral sen- 
sibility of Tasso, though somewhat obscured by an 
assumed and artificial style. 

We read a good deal here, — and we read little in 
Livorno. We have ridden, Mary and I, once only, 
to a place called Prato Fiorito, on the top of the 
mountains : the road, winding through forests, and 
over torrents, and on the verge of green ravines, af- 
fords scenery magnificently fine. I cannot describe 
it to you, but bid you, though vainly, come and see. 
I take great delight in watching the changes of the 
atmosphere here, and the growth of the thunder 
showers with which the noon is often overshadowed, 
and which break and fade away towards evening into 
flocks of delicate clouds. Our fire-flies are fading 
away fast ; but there is the planet Jupiter, who rises 
majestically over the rift in the forest-covered moun- 
tains to the south, and the pale summer lightning 
which is spread out every night, at intervals, over 
the sky. No doubt Providence has contrived these 
things, that, when the fire-flies go out, the low-flying 
owl may see her way home. 

Remember me kindly to the Machinista. 

With the sentiment of impatience until we see you 
again in the autumn, I am yours most sincerely. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 1 13 

XXXIV. 

TO WILLIAM GODWIN. 

Bagni di Lucca, July 25, 1818 
My dear Godwin, — We have, as yet, seen noth- 
ing of Italy which marks it to us as the habitation 
of departed greatness, The serene sky, the magnifi- 
cent scenery, the delightful productions of the climate, 
are known to us, indeed, as the same with those which 
the ancients enjoyed. But Rome and Naples — even 
Florence — are yet to see ; and if we were to write 
you at present a history of our impressions, it would 
give you no idea that we lived in Italy. 

I am exceedingly delighted with the plan you pro- 
pose of a book illustrating the character of our ca- 
lumniated republicans. It is precisely the subject for 
Mary ; and I imagine that, but for the fear of being 
excited to refer to books not within her reach, she 
would attempt to begin it here, and order the works 
you notice. I am unfortunately little skilled in Eng- 
lish history, and the interest which it excites in me is 
so feeble that I find it a duty to attain merely to that 
general knowledge of it which is indispensable. 

Mary has just finished Ariosto with me, and, in- 
deed, has attained a very competent knowledge of 
Italian. She is now reading Livy. I have been con- 
stantly occupied in literature, but have written little, 
— except some translations from Plato, in which I 
exercised myself, in the despair of producing any- 
thing original. The " Symposium " of Plato seems to 

8 



H4 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

me one of the most valuable pieces of all antiquity, 
whether we consider the intrinsic merit of the com- 
position, or the light which it throws on the inmost 
state of manners and opinions among the ancient 
Greeks. I have occupied myself in translating this, 
and it has excited me to attempt an essay upon the 
cause of some differences in sentiment between the 
Ancients and Moderns, with respect to the subject of 
the dialogue. 

Two things give us pleasure in your last letters. 
The resumption of [your answer to] Malthus, 1 and 
the favorable turn of the general election. If Minis- 
ters do not find some means, totally inconceivable to 
me, of plunging the nation in war, do you imagine 
that they can subsist ? Peace is all that a country, in 
the present state of England, seems to require, to af- 
ford it tranquillity and leisure for attempting some 
remedy, not to the universal evils of all constituted 
society, but to the peculiar system of misrule under 
which those evils have been exasperated now. I 
wish that I had health or spirits that would enable me 
to enter into public affairs, or that I could find words 
to express all that I feel and know. 

The modern Italians seem a miserable people, 
without sensibility, or imagination, or understanding. 
Their outside is polished, and an intercourse with 
them seems to proceed with much facility, though it 
ends in nothing, and produces nothing. The women 
are particularly empty, and, though possessed of the 
same kind of superficial grace, are devoid of every 
cultivation and refinement. They have a ball at the 
1 See Kegan Paul's Life of Godwin. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1 15 

Casino here every Sunday, which we attend, — but 

neither Mary nor C dance. I do not know 

whether they refrain from philosophy or protestant- 
ism. 

I hear that poor Mary's book 1 is attacked most 
violently in the Quarterly Review. We have heard 
some praise of it, and, among others, an article of 
Walter Scott's in Blackwood's Magazine. 

If you should have anything to send us, — and, I 
assure you, anything relating to England is interest- 
ing to us, — commit it to the care of Oilier, the 

bookseller, or P ; they send me a parcel every 

quarter. 

My health is, I think, better, and I imagine con- 
tinues to improve, but I still have busy thoughts and 
dispiriting cares, which I would shake off, — and it 
is now summer. — A thousand good wishes to your- 
self and your undertakings. 



XXXV. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Bagni di Lucca, July 25, 1818. 

My dear Peacock, — I received on the same 
day your letters marked 5 and 6, the one directed to 
Pisa and the other to Livorno, and I can assure you 
that they are most welcome visitors. 

Our life here is as unvaried by any external events 

1 "Frankenstein/' 



n6 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

as if we were at Marlow, where a sail up the river or 
a journey to London makes an epoch. Since I last 
wrote to you, I have ridden over to Lucca, once, 
with C, and once alone ; and we have been over 
to the Casino, where I cannot say there is anything 
remarkable, the women being far removed from 
anything which the most liberal annotator would 
interpret into beauty or grace, and apparently pos- 
sessing no intellectual excellences to compensate the 
deficiency. I assure you it is well that it is so, for 
the dances, especially the waltz, are so exquisitely 
beautiful that it would be a little dangerous to the 
newly unfrozen senses and imaginations of us migra- 
tors from the neighborhood of the pole. As it is, — 
except in the dark, — there can be no peril. The 
atmosphere here, unlike that of the rest of Italy, is 
diversified with clouds, which grow in the middle of 
the day, and sometimes bring thunder and lightning, 
and hail about the size of a pigeon's egg, and de- 
crease towards the evening, leaving only those finely 
woven webs of vapor which we see in English skies, 
and flocks of fleecy and slowly moving clouds, which 
all vanish before sunset ; and the nights are forever 
serene, and we see a star in the east at sunset, — I 
think it is Jupiter, — almost as fine as Venus was 
last summer ; but it wants a certain silver and aerial 
radiance, and soft yet piercing splendor, which be- 
longs, I suppose, to the latter planet by virtue of its 
at once divine and female nature. I have forgotten 
to ask the ladies if Jupiter produces on them the 
same effect. I take great delight in watching the 
changes of the atmosphere. In the evening, Mary 



PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE K 117 

and I often take a ride, for horses are cheap in this 
country. In the middle of the day I bathe in a pool 
or fountain, formed in the middle of the forests by a 
torrent. It is surrounded on all sides by precipitous 
rocks, and the waterfall of the stream which forms 
it falls into it on one side with perpetual dashing. 
Close to it, on the top of the rocks, are alders, and 
above the great chestnut trees, whose long and 
pointed leaves pierce the deep blue sky in strong 
relief. The water of this pool, which, to venture an 
unrhythmical paraphrase, is " sixteen feet long and 
ten feet wide," is as transparent as the air, so that 
the stones and sand at the bottom seem, as it were, 
trembling in the light of noonday. It is exceedingly 
cold also. My custom is to undress, and sit on the 
rocks, reading Herodotus until the perspiration has 
subsided, and then to leap from the edge of the rock 
into this fountain, — a practice in the hot weather 
excessively refreshing. This torrent is composed, as 
it were, of a succession of pools and waterfalls, up 
which I sometimes amuse myself by climbing when I 
bathe, and receiving the spray over all my body, 
whilst I clamber up the moist crags with difficulty. 
I have lately found myself totally incapable of 
original composition. I employed my mornings, 
therefore, in translating the " Symposium," which I 
accomplished in ten days. Mary is now transcribing 
it, and I am writing a prefatory essay. I have been 
reading scarcely anything but Greek, and a little 
Italian poetry with Mary. We have finished Ari- 
osto together, — a thing I could not have done 
again alone. 



n8 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

" Frankenstein " seems to have been well re- 
ceived ; for although the unfriendly criticism of the 
Quarterly is an evil for it, yet it proves that it is 
read in some considerable degree, and it would be 
difficult for them, with any appearance of fairness, to 
deny it merit altogether. Their notice of me, and 
their exposure of their true motives for not noticing 
my book, shows how well understood an hostility 
must subsist between me and them. 

The news of the result of the elections, especially 
that of the metropolis, is highly inspiriting. I re- 
ceived a letter, of two days' later date, with yours, 
which announced the unfortunate termination of that 
of Westmoreland. I wish you had sent me some of 
the overflowing villany of those apostates. What a 
pitiful wretch that Wordsworth ! That such a man 
should be such a poet ! I can compare him with no 
one but Simonides, that flatterer of the Sicilian ty- 
rants, and at the same time the most natural and 
tender of lyric poets. 

What pleasure would it have given me if the wings 
of imagination could have divided the space which 
divides us, and I could have been of your party. I 
have seen nothing so beautiful as Virginia Water in 
its kind. And my thoughts forever cling to Windsor 
Forest, and the copses of Marlow, like the clouds 
which hang upon the woods of the mountains, low 
trailing, and, though they pass away, leave their best 
dew when they themselves have faded. You tell me 
that you have finished " Nightmare Abbey." I hope 
that you have given the enemy no quarter. Remem- 
ber, it is a sacred war. We have found an excellent 



PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE Y. 119 

quotation in Ben Jonson's " Every Man in his Hu- 
mor." I will transcribe it, as I do not think you 
have these plays at Marlow : — 

" Matthew. O, it 's only your fine humor, sir. Your 
true melancholy breeds your fine wit, sir. I am melancholy 
myself divers times, sir ; and then do I no more but take 
pen and paper presently, and overflow you half a score or a 
dozen of sonnets at a sitting. 

11 Ed. Knowell. Sure, he utters them by the gross. 

" Stephen. Truly, sir ; and I love such things out of 
measure. 

"Ed. Knowell. I' faith, better than in measure, I'll 
undertake. 

" Matthew. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my 
study; it's at your service. 

" Stephen. I thank you, sir; I shall be bold, I warrant 
you. Have you a stool there to be melancholy upon ? " — Act 
III. Scene 1. 

The last expression would not make a bad motto. 1 



XXXVI. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Bagni di Lucca, August 16, 181 8. 
My dear Peacock, — No new event has been 
added to my life since I wrote last : at least none 
which might not have taken place as well on the 
banks of the Thames as on those of the Serchio. I 
project soon a short excursion, of a week or so, to 

1 Peacock adopted this suggestion, omitting Knowell's 
interlocutions. 



120 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

some of the neighboring cities; and on the ioth of 
September we leave this place for Florence, when I 
shall at least be able to tell you of some things which 
you cannot see from your windows. 

I have finished — by taking advantage of a few 
days of inspiration, which the Camenae have been 
lately very backward in conceding — the little poem 
I began sending to the press in London. 1 Oilier 
will send you the proofs. Its structure is slight and 
airy, its subject ideal. The metre corresponds with 
the spirit of the poem, and varies with the flow of 
the feeling. I have translated, and Mary has trans- 
cribed the " Symposium," as well as my poem ; and 
I am proceeding to employ myself on a discourse, 
upon the subject of which the Symposium treats, 
considering the subject with reference to the differ- 
ence of sentiments respecting it existing between 
the Greeks and modern nations ; a subject to be 
handled with that delicate caution which either I 
cannot or I will not practise in other matters, but 
which here I acknowledge to be necessary. Not 
that I have any serious thought of publishing either 
this discourse or the Symposium, at least till I 
return to England, when we may discuss the pro- 
priety of it. 

" Nightmare Abbey " finished. Well, what is in 
it? What is it? You are as secret as if the priest 
of Ceres had dictated its sacred pages. However, I 
suppose I shall see in time, when my second parcel 

1 " Rosalind and Helen." Shelley began this poem at 
Marlow, and on his departure for Italy left what he had 
written with Oilier. He finished it at Bagni di. Lucca. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 121 

arrives. My first is yet absent. By what conveyance 
did you send it? 

Pray, are you yet cured of your Nympholepsy ? 
'T is a sweet disease : but one as obstinate and dan- 
gerous as any, — even when the Nymph is a Poliad. 
Whether such be the case or not, I hope your 
nympholeptic tale is not abandoned. The subject, 
if treated with a due spice of Bacchic fury, and in- 
terwoven with the manners and feelings of those 
divine people who, in their very errors, are the mir- 
rors, as it were, in which all that is delicate and 
graceful contemplates itself, is perhaps equal to any. 
What a wonderful passage there is in " Phaedrus," — 
the beginning, I think, of one of the speeches of 
Socrates, 1 — in praise of poetic madness, and in defi- 
nition of what poetry is, and how a man becomes a 
poet. Every man who lives in this age and desires 
to write poetry ought, as a preservative against the 
false and narrow systems of criticism which every 
poetical empiric vents, to impress himself with this 
sentence, if he would be numbered among those to 

1 The passage alluded to is this. " There are 'several 
kinds," says Socrates, " of divine madness. That which 
proceeds from the Muses taking possession of a tender and 
unoccupied soul, awakening and bacchically inspiring it 
towards songs and other poetry, adorning myriads of an- 
cient deeds, instructs succeeding generations, but he who, 
without this madness from the Muses, approaches the poeti- 
cal gates, having persuaded himself that by art alone he 
may become sufficiently a poet, will find in the end his own 
imperfection, and see the poetry of his cold prudence vanish 
into nothingness before the light of that which has sprung 
from divine insanity." — Platonis Phcsdrns, p. 245 a. — T. L. P. 



122 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

whom may apply this proud, though sublime, expres- 
sion of Tasso : " Non c' e in mondo chi merita nome 
di creatore, che Dio ed il Poeta." 

The weather has been brilliantly fine ; and now, 
among these mountains, the autumnal air is becom- 
ing less hot, especially in the mornings and evenings. 
The chestnut woods are now inexpressibly beautiful, 
for the chestnuts have become large, and add a new 
richness to the full foliage. We see here Jupiter in 
the east ; and Venus, I believe, as the evening star, 
directly after sunset. 

More and better in my next. M. and C. desire 
their kind remembrances. 



XXXVII. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 
(Bagni di Lucca.) 

Fiorence, Thursday, u o'clock, 
August 20, 1818. 

Dearest Mary, — We have been delayed in this 
city four hours, for the Austrian Minister's passport, 
but are now on the point of setting out with a vettu- 
rino, who engages to take us on the third day to 
Padua ; that is, we shall only sleep three nights on 
the road. Yesterday's journey, performed in a one- 
horse cabriolet, almost without springs, over a rough 
road, was excessively fatiguing. C 1 suffered most 

1 Claire Clairmont, Mary's half-sister, was Shelley's com- 
panion on this journey. 



PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLE Y. 123 

from it ; for, as to myself, there are occasions in 
which fatigue seems a useful medicine, as I have 
felt no pain in my side — a most delightful respite — 
since I left you. The country was various and ex- 
ceedingly beautiful. Sometimes there were those 
low cultivated lands, with their vine festoons, and 
large bunches of grapes just becoming purple ; at 
others we passed between high mountains, crowned 
with some of the most majestic Gothic ruins I ever 
saw, which frowned from the bare precipices, or were 
half seen among the olive copses. As we approached 
Florence, the country became cultivated to a very 
high degree, the plain was filled with the most beau- 
tiful villas, and, as far as the eye could reach, the 
mountains were covered with them ; for the plains 
are bounded on all sides by blue and misty moun- 
tains. The vines are here trailed on low trellises of 
reeds interwoven into crosses to support them, and 
the grapes, now almost ripe, are exceedingly abun- 
dant. You everywhere meet those teams of beau- 
tiful white oxen, which are now laboring the little 
vine-divided fields with their Virgilian ploughs and 
carts. 

Florence itself, that is the Lung' Arno (for I have 
seen no more), I think is the most beautiful city I 
have yet seen. It is surrounded with cultivated hills, 
and from the bridge which crosses the broad chan- 
nel of the Arno the view is the most animated and 
elegant I ever saw. You see three or four bridges, 
one apparently supported by Corinthian pillars, and 
the white sails of the boats, relieved by the deep 
green of the forest, which comes to the water's edge, 



124 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and the sloping hills covered with bright villas on 
every side. Domes and steeples rise on all sides, 
and the cleanliness is remarkably great. On the 
other side there are the foldings of the Vale of Arno 
above ; first the hills of olive and vine, then the 
chestnut woods, and then the blue and misty pine 
forests which invest the aerial Apennines, that fade 
in the distance. I have seldom seen a city so lovely 
at first sight as Florence. 

We shall travel hence within a few hours, with the 
speed of the post, since the distance is one hundred 
and ninety miles, and we are to do it in three days, 
besides the half day, which is somewhat more than 
sixty miles a day. We have now got a comfortable 
carriage and two mules, and, thanks to Paolo, have 
made a very decent bargain, comprising everything, 
to Padua. I should say we had delightful fruit for 
breakfast, — figs, very fine, — and peaches, unfortu- 
nately gathered before they were ripe, whose smell 
was like what one fancies of the wakening of Para- 
dise flowers. 

Well, my dearest Mary, are you very lonely ? Tell 
me truth, my sweetest, do you ever cry? I shall 
hear from you once at Venice, and once on my 
return here. If you love me you will keep up your 
spirits, — and, at all events, tell me truth about it; 
for, I assure you, I am not of a disposition to be 
flattered by your sorrow, though I should be by your 
cheerfulness ; and, above all, by seeing such fruits 
of my absence as were produced when we were at 
Geneva. 1 What acquaintances have you made? I 

1 Referring to " Frankenstein." 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 125 

might have travelled to Padua with a German, who 
had just come from Rome, and had scarce recovered 
from a malarial fever, caught in the Pontine Marshes, 

a week or two since ; and I conceded to C 's 

entreaties, and to your absent suggestions, and 
omitted the opportunity, although I have no great 
faith in such species of contagion. It is not very 
hot, — not at all too much so for my sensations ; and 
the only thing that incommodes me are the gnats at 
night, who roar like so many humming-tops in one's 
ear, — and I do not always find zanzariere. How is 
Willmouse and little Clara? They must be kissed 
for me, — and you must particularly remember to 
speak my name to William, and see that he does 
not quite forget me before I return. Adieu, my 
dearest girl, I think that we shall soon meet. I shall 
write again from Venice. Adieu, dear Mary ! 

I have been reading the " Noble Kinsmen,'' in 
which, with the exception of that lovely scene, to 
which you added so much grace in reading to me, I 
have been disappointed. The Jailer's Daughter is a 
poor imitation, and deformed. The whole story 
wants moral discrimination and modesty. I do not 
believe that Shakespeare wrote a word of it. 



126 THE BEST LETTERS OF 



XXXVIII. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 
(Bagni di Lucca.) 

Venice, Sunday Morning. 

My dearest Mary, — We arrived here last night 
at twelve o'clock, and it is now before breakfast the 
next morning. I can, of course, tell you nothing of 
the future ; and though I shall not close this letter 
till post time, yet I do not know exactly when that 
is. Yet, if you are very impatient, look along the 
letter and you will see another date, when I may 
have something to relate. 

I came from Padua hither in a gondola, and the 
gondoliere, among other things, without any hint on 
my part, began talking of Lord Byron. He said he 
was a giovinotto Inglese, with a nome stravagante, who 
lived very luxuriously, and spent great sums of money. 
This man, it seems, was one of Lord B.'s gondolieri. 
No sooner had we arrived at the inn than the waiter 
began talking about him, — said that he frequented 
Mrs. H.'s conversazioni very much. 

Our journey from Florence to Padua contained 
nothing which may not be related another time. At 
Padua, as I said, we took a gondola — and left it at 
three o'clock. These gondolas are the most beauti- 
ful and convenient boats in the world. They are 
finely carpeted and furnished with black, and painted 
black. The couches on which you lean are extraor- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 127 

dinarily soft, and are so disposed as to be the most 
comfortable to those who lean or sit. The windows 
have at will either Venetian plate-glass flowered, or 
Venetian blinds, or blinds of black cloth to shut out 
the light. The weather here is extremely cold, — 
indeed, sometimes very painfully so, and yesterday 
it began to rain. We passed the laguna in the mid- 
dle of the night in a most violent storm of wind, rain, 
and lightning. It was very curious to observe the 
elements above in a state of such tremendous con- 
vulsion, and the surface of the water almost calm ; 
for these lagunas, though five miles broad, a space 
enough in a storm to sink a gondola, are so shallow 
that the boatmen drive the boat along with a pole. 
The sea-water, furiously agitated by the wind, shone 
with sparkles like stars. Venice, now hidden and 
now disclosed by the driving rain, shone dimly with 
its lights. We were all this while safe and comforta- 
ble. Well, adieu, dearest : I shall, as Miss Byron 
says, resume the pen in the evening. 

Sunday Night, 5 o'clock in the Morning. 
Well, I will try to relate everything in its order. 

At three o'clock I called on Lord Byron : he was 
delighted to see me. 

He took me in his gondola across the laguna to a 
long sandy island, which defends Venice from the 
Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his 
horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands 
of" the sea, talking. Our conversation consisted in 
histories of his wounded feelings, and questions as 



128 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

to my affairs, and great professions of friendship and 
regard for me. He said, that if he had been in 
England at the time of the Chancery affair, he 
would have moved heaven and earth to have pre- 
vented such a decision. We talked of literary 
matters, his Fourth Canto, which, he says, is very 
good, and indeed repeated some stanzas of great 
energy to me. 

The Hoppners are the most amiable people I ever 
knew. They are much attached to each other, and 
have a nice little boy, seven months old. Mr. H. 
paints beautifully, and this excursion, which he has 
just put off, was an expedition to the Julian Alps; in 
this neighborhood, for the sake of sketching, to pro- 
cure winter employment. He has only a fortnight's 
leisure, and he has sacrificed two days of it to stran- 
gers whom he never saw before. Mrs. H. has hazel 
eyes and sweet looks. 

Well, but the time presses ; I am now going to the 
banker's to send you money for the journey, which I 
shall address to you at Florence, Post-office. Pray 
come instantly to Este, where I shall be waiting in the 
utmost anxiety for your arrival. You can pack up 
directly you get this letter, and employ the next day 
on that. The day after, get up at four o'clock, and 
go post to Lucca, where you will arrive at six. Then 
take a vetturino for Florence to arrive the same 
evening. From Florence to Este is three days' 
vetturino journey, — and you could not, I think, do 
it quicker by the post. Make Paolo take you to 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 129 

good inns, as we found very bad ones ; and pray 
avoid the Tre Mori at Bologna, perche vi sono cose 
inesp?'essibili nei letti. I do not think you can, but 
try to get from Florence to Bologna in one day. Do 
not take the post, for it is not much faster and very 
expensive. I have been obliged to decide on all 
these things without you : I have done for the best. 
And, my own beloved Mary, you must soon come 
and scold me if I have done wrong, and kiss me if I 
have done right, — for, I am sure, I do not know 
which, — and it is only the event that can show. 
We shall at least be saved the trouble of introduction, 
and have formed acquaintance with a lady who is so 
good, so beautiful, so angelically mild, that, were she 

as wise too, she would be quite a . Her eyes 

are like a reflection of yours. Her manners are like 
yours when you know and like a person. 

Do you know, dearest, how this letter was written ? 
By scraps and patches, and interrupted every minute. 
The gondola is now come to take me to the banker's. 
Este is a little place, and the house found without 
difficulty. I shall count four days for this letter : 
one day for packing, four for coming here, — and on 
the ninth or tenth day we shall meet. 

Dearest love, be well, be happy, come to me, — 
confide in your own constant and affectionate 

P. B. S. 

Kiss the blue-eyed darlings for me, and do not let 
William forget me. Clara cannot recollect me. 



130 THE BEST LETTERS OF 



XXXIX. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 
(I Cappuccini, Este.) 

Padua, Mezzogiorno, 
My best Mary, — I found at Mont Selice a favor- 
able opportunity for going to Venice, where I shall 
try to make some arrangement for you and little Ca. 
to come for some days, and shall meet you, if I do 
not write anything in the mean time, at Padua, on 
Thursday morning. C. says she is obliged to come 
to see the Medico, whom we missed this morning, 
and who has appointed as the only hour at which he 
can be at leisure half-past eight in the morning. 
You must, therefore, arrange matters so that you 
should come to the Stella d' Oro a little before that 
hour, — a thing to be accomplished only by setting 
out at half-past three in the morning. You will by 
this means arrive at Venice very early in the day, and 
avoid the heat, which might be bad for the babe, and 
take the time when she would at least sleep great 
part of the time. C. will return with the return car- 
riage, and I shall meet you, or send to you at 
Padua. 

Meanwhile remember Charles the First, — and do 
you be prepared to bring at least some of " Myrra " 
translated ; bring the book also with you, and the 
sheets of " Prometheus Unbound," which you will 
find numbered from one to twenty-six on the table of 
the pavilion. My poor little Clara, how is she to-day ? 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 13 1 

Indeed, I am somewhat uneasy about her, and though 
I feel secure that there is no danger, it would be very 
comfortable to have some reasonable person's opinion 
about her. The Medico at Padua is certainly a man 
in great practice, but I confess he does not satisfy me. 

Am I not like a wild swan to be gone so suddenly ? 
But, in fact, to set off alone to Venice required an 
exertion. I felt myself capable of making it, and I 
knew that you desired it. What will not be — if so 
it is destined — the lonely journey through that wide, 
cold France ? But we shall see. 

Adieu, my dearest love, — remember Charles I. 
and Myrra. I have been already imagining how you 
will conduct some scenes. The second volume of 
St. Leon begins with this proud and true sentiment : 
" There is nothing which the human mind can con- 
ceive which it may not execute." Shakespeare was 
only a human being. 

Adieu till Thursday. 



XL. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Este, October 8, 18 18. 
My dear P., — I have not written to you, I think, 
for six weeks. But I have been on the point of 
writing many times, and have often felt that I had 
many things to say. But I have not been without 
events to disturb and distract me, amongst which is 
the death of my little girl. She died of a disorder 



132 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

peculiar to the climate. We have all had bad spirits 
enough, and I, in addition, bad health. I intend to 
be better soon : there is no malady, bodily or mental, 
which does not either kill or is killed. 

We left the Baths of Lucca, I think, the day after 
I wrote to you — on a visit to Venice — partly for 
the sake of seeng the city. We made a very delight- 
ful acquaintance there with a Mr. and Mrs. Hoppner, 
the gentleman an Englishman, and the lady a Swiss- 
esse, mild and beautiful, and unprejudiced, in the 
best sense of the word. The kind attentions of these 
people made our short stay at Venice very pleasant. 
I saw Lord Byron, and really hardly knew him again ; 
he is changed into the liveliest and happiest-looking 
man I ever met. He read me the first canto of his 
" Don Juan," — a thing in the style of i( Beppo," but 
infinitely better, and dedicated to Southey, in ten or 
a dozen stanzas, more like a mixture of wormwood 
and verdigris than satire. Venice is a wonderfully 
fine city. The approach to it over the laguna, with 
its domes and turrets glittering in a long line over the 
blue waves, is one of the finest architectural delusions 
in the world. It seems to have — and literally it has 
— its foundations in the sea. The silent streets are 
paved with water, and you hear nothing but the dash- 
ing of the oars, and the occasional cries of the gon- 
dolieri. I heard nothing of Tasso. The gondolas 
themselves are things of a most romantic and pic- 
turesque appearance ; I can only compare them to 
moths of which a coffin might have been the chrysalis. 
They are hung with black, and painted black, and car- 
peted with gray ; they curl at the prow and stern, and 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 133 

at the former there is a nondescript beak of shining 
steel, which glitters at the end of its long black mass. 

The Doge's palace, with its library, is a fine monu- 
ment of aristocratic power. I saw the dungeons 
where these scoundrels used to torment their victims. 
They are of three kinds, — one adjoining the place of 
trial, where the prisoners destined to immediate ex- 
ecution were kept. I could not descend into them, 
because the day on which I visited it was festa. An- 
other under the leads of the palace, where the suf- 
ferers were roasted to death or madness by the 
ardors of an Italian sun ; and others called the Pozzi, 
or wells, deep underneath, and communicating with 
those on the roof by secret passages — where the 
prisoners were confined sometimes half up to their 
middles in stinking water. When the French came 
here, they found only one old man in the dungeons, 
and he could not speak. But Venice, which was once 
a tyrant, is now the next worst thing, a slave ; for in 
fact it ceased to be free or worth our regret as a 
nation from the moment that the oligarchy usurped 
the rights of the people. Yet I do not imagine that 
it was ever so degraded as it has been since the 
French, and especially the Austrian yoke. The Aus- 
trians take sixty per cent in taxes, and impose free 
quarters on the inhabitants. A horde of German 
soldiers, as vicious and more disgusting than the 
Venetians themselves, insult these miserable people. 
I had no conception of the excess to which avarice, 
cowardice, superstition, ignorance, passionless lust, 
and all the inexpressible brutalities which degrade 
human nature, could be carried, until I had passed a 
few days at Venice. 



134 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

We have been living this last month near the little 
town from which I date this letter, in a very pleasant 
villa which has been lent to us, and we are now on 
the point of proceeding to Florence, Rome, and 
Naples, — at which last city we shall spend the 
winter, and return northwards in the spring. Behind 
us here are the Euganean hills, not so beautiful as 
those of the Bagni di Lucca, with Arqua, where Pe- 
trarch's house and tomb are religiously preserved and 
visited. At the end of our garden is an extensive 
Gothic castle, now the habitation of owls and bats, 
where the Medici family resided before they came to 
Florence. We see before us the wide flat plains of 
Lombardy, in which we see the sun and moon rise 
and set, and the evening star, and all the golden 
magnificence of autumnal clouds. But I reserve 
wonder for Naples. 

I have been writing ; and indeed have just fin- 
ished the first act of a lyric and classical drama, to 
be called " Prometheus Unbound. " Will you tell me 
what there is in Cicero about a drama supposed to 
have been written by ^Eschylus under this title. 

I ought to say that I have just read Malthus in a 
French translation. Malthus is a very clever man, 
and the world would be a great gainer if it would 
seriously take his lessons into consideration, if it were 
capable of attending seriously to anything but mis- 
chief. But what on earth does he mean by some of 
his inferences ? 

I will write again from Rome and Florence, — in 
better spirits and to more agreeable purpose, I hope. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 135 

You saw those beautiful stanzas in the fourth canto 
about the Nymph Egeria. Well, I did not whisper 
a word about nympholepsy : I hope you acquit me, 
— and I hope you will not carry delicacy so far as to 
let this suppress anything nympholeptic. 



XLI. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

[Ferrara,] November 9 [1818]. 
We have had heavy rain and thunder all night ; 
and the former still continuing, we went in the car- 
riage about the town. We went first to look at the 
cathedral, but the beggars very soon made us sound 
a retreat ; so, whether, as it is said, there is a copy of 
a picture of Michael Angelo there or no, I cannot 
tell At the public library we were more successful. 
This is, indeed, a magnificent establishment, con- 
taining, as they say, 100,000 volumes. We saw some 
illuminated manuscripts of church music, with verses 
of the Psalms interlined between the square notes, 
each of which consisted of the most delicate tracery, 
in colors inconceivably vivid. They belonged to the 
neighboring convent of Certosa, and are three or 
four hundred years old ; but their hues are as fresh 
as if they had been executed yesterday. The tomb 
of Ariosto occupies one end of the largest saloon of 
which the library is composed ; it is formed of various 
marbles, surmounted by an expressive bust of the 
poet, and subscribed with a few Latin verses, in a less 



136 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

miserable taste than those usually employed for simi- 
lar purposes. But the most interesting exhibitions 
here are the writings, etc., of Ariosto and Tasso, 
which are preserved, and were concealed from the un- 
distinguishing depredations of the French with pious 
care. There is the arm-chair of Ariosto, an old plain 
wooden piece of furniture, the hard seat of which 
was once occupied by, but has now survived, its 
cushion, as it has its master. I could fancy Ariosto 
sitting in it ; and the satires in his own handwriting 
which they unfold beside it, and the old bronze ink- 
stand, loaded with figures, which belonged also to 
him, assist the willing delusion. This inkstand has 
an antique, rather than an ancient appearance. Three 
Nymphs lean forth from the circumference, and on 
the top of the lid stands a Cupid winged and looking 
up, with a torch in one hand, his bow in the other, 
and his quiver beside him. A medal was bound 
round the skeleton of Ariosto, with his likeness im- 
pressed upon it. I cannot say I think it had much 
native expression ; but perhaps the artist was in 
fault. On the reverse is a hand, cutting with a pair 
of scissors the tongue from a serpent, upraised from 
the grass, with this legend : " Pro bono malum." 
What this reverse of the boasted Christian maxim 
means, or how it applies to Ariosto, either as a satirist 
or a serious writer, I cannot exactly tell. The cice- 
rone attempted to explain, and it is to his commentary 
that my bewildering is probably due, — if, indeed, the 
meaning be very plain, as is possibly the case. 

There is here a manuscript of the entire " Gerusa- 
lemme Liberata," written by Tasso's own hand ; a 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 137 

manuscript of some poems, written in prison, to the 
Duke Alfonso ; and the satires of Ariosto, written 
also by his own hand ; and the " Pastor Fido " of 
Guarini. The Gerusalemme, though it had evidently 
been copied and recopied, is interlined, particularly 
towards the end, with numerous corrections. The 
handwriting of Ariosto is a small, firm, and pointed 
character, expressing, as I should say, a strong and 
keen, but circumscribed energy of mind; that of 
Tasso is large, free, and flowing, except that there is 
a checked expression in the midst of its flow, which 
brings the letters into a smaller compass than one 
expected from the beginning of the word. It is the 
symbol of an intense and earnest mind, exceeding 
at times its own depth, and admonished to return by 
the chillness of the waters of oblivion striking upon 
its adventurous feet. You know I always seek in 
what I see the manifestation of something beyond 
the present and tangible object ; and as we do not 
agree in physiognomy, so we may not agree now. 
But my business is to relate my own sensations, and 
not to attempt to inspire others with them. • Some 
of the MSS. of Tasso were sonnets to his persecutor, 
which contain a great deal of what is called flattery. 
If Alfonso's ghost were asked how he felt those 
praises now, I wonder what he would say. But to me 
there is much more to pity than to condemn in these 
entreaties and praises of Tasso. It is as a bigot 
prays to and praises his god, whom he knows to be 
the most remorseless, capricious, and inflexible of 
tyrants, but whom he knows also to be omnipotent. 
Tasso's situation was widely different from that of any 



138 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

persecuted being of the present day ; for from the 
depth of dungeons, public opinion might now at 
length be awakened to an echo that would startle the 
oppressor, But then there was no hope. There is 
something irresistibly pathetic to me in the sight of 
Tasso's own handwriting, moulding expressions of 
adulation and entreaty to a deaf and stupid tyrant, 
in an age when the most heroic virtue would have ex- 
posed its possessor to hopeless persecution, and — 
such is the alliance between virtue and genius — 
which unoffending genius could not escape. 

We went afterwards to see his prison in the hos- 
pital of Sant' Anna, and I enclose you a piece of the 
wood of the very door, which for seven years and 
three months divided this glorious being from the air 
and the light which had nourished in him those in- 
fluences which he has communicated, through his 
poetry, to thousands. The dungeon is low and dark, 
and when I say that it is really a very decent dungeon, 
I speak as one who has seen the prisons in the Doges' 
palace of Venice. But it is a horrible abode for the 
coarsest and meanest thing that ever wore the shape 
of man, much more for one of delicate susceptibili- 
ties and elevated fancies. It is low, and has a grated 
window, and, being sunk some feet below the level of 
the earth, is full of unwholesome damps, In the 
darkest corner is a mark in the wall where the chains 
were riveted, which bound him hand and foot Af- 
ter some time, at the instance of some cardinal, his 
friend, the Duke allowed his victim a fireplace ; the 
mark where it was walled up yet remains. 

At the entrance of the Liceo, where the library is, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 139 

we were met by a penitent ; his form was completely 
enveloped in a ghost -like drapery of white flannel ; 
his bare feet were sandalled ; and there was a kind 
of network visor drawn over his eyes, so as entirely to 
conceal his face, I imagine that this man had been 
adjudged to suffer this penance for some crime known 
only to himself and his confessor, and this kind of ex- 
hibition is a striking instance of the power of the 
Catholic superstition over the human mind. He 
passed, rattling his wooden box for charity. 

Adieu. — You will hear from me again before I 
arrive at Naples. 



XLII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Bologna, Monday, November 9, 1818, 
My dear P., — I have seen a quantity of things 
here, — churches, palaces, statues, fountains, and pic- 
tures ; and my brain is at this moment like a portfolio 
of an architect, or a print-shop, or a commonplace- 
book. I will try to recollect something of what I 
have seen ; for indeed it requires, if it will obey, an 
act of volition, First, we went to the cathedral, 
which contains nothing remarkable, except a kind of 
shrine, or rather a marble canopy, loaded with sculp- 
tures, and supported on four marble columns. We 
went then to a palace, — I am sure I forget the name 
of it, — where we saw a large gallery of pictures. Of 
course, in a picture gallery you see three hundred 



140 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

pictures you forget for one you remember. I re- 
member, however, an interesting picture by Guido, 
of the Rape of Proserpine, in which Proserpine casts 
back her languid and half-unwilling eyes, as it were, 
to the flowers she had left ungathered in the fields of 
Enna. There was an exquisitely executed piece of 
Correggio, about four saints, one of whom seemed 
to have a pet dragon in a leash. I was told that it 
was the Devil who was bound in that style. But who 
can make anything of four saints? For what can 
they be supposed to be about ? There was one paint- 
ing, indeed, by this master, Christ beatified, inex- 
pressibly fine. It is a half figure, seated on a mass 
of clouds, tinged with an ethereal, rose-like lustre ; 
the arms are expanded ; the whole frame seems di- 
lated with expression ; the countenance is heavy, as 
it were, with the weight of the rapture of the spirit ; 
the lips parted, but scarcely parted, with the breath 
of intense but regulated passion ; the eyes are calm 
and benignant; the whole features harmonized in 
majesty and sweetness. The hair is parted on the 
forehead, and falls in heavy locks on each side. It 
is motionless, but seems as if the faintest breath 
would move it. The coloring, I suppose, must be 
very good, if I could remark and understand it. The 
sky is of a pale aerial orange, like the tints of latest 
sunset ; it does not seem painted around and beyond 
the figure, but everything seems to have absorbed, 
and to have been penetrated by its hues. I do not 
think we saw any other of Correggio, but this speci- 
men gives me a very exalted idea of his powers. 
We went to see Heaven knows how many more 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 141 

palaces, — Ranuzzi, Marriscalchi, Aldobrandi. If 
you want Italian names for any purpose, here they 
are ; I should be glad of them if I were writing a 
novel. I saw many more of Guido, One, a Samson 
drinking water out of an ass's jaw-bone in the midst 
of the slaughtered Philistines. Why he is supposed 
to do this, God, who gave him this jaw-bone, alone 
knows, — but certain it is that the painting is a very 
fine one. The figure of Samson stands in strong re- 
lief in the foreground, colored, as it were, in the hues 
of human life, and full of strength and elegance. 
Round him lie the Philistines in all the attitudes of 
death. One prone, with the slight convulsion of 
pain just passing from his forehead, whilst on his 
lips and chin death lies as heavy as sleep. Another 
leaning on his arm, with his hand, white and motion- 
less, hanging out beyond. In the distance, more 
dead bodies ; and, still further beyond, the blue sea 
and the blue mountains, and one white and tranquil 
sail. 

There is a Murder of the Innocents, also by 
Guido, finely colored, with much fine expression, — 
but the subject is very horrible, and it seemed defi- 
cient in strength, — at least, you require the highest 
ideal energy, the most poetical and exalted concep- 
tion of the subject, to reconcile you to such a con- 
templation. There was a Jesus Christ crucified, by 
the same, very fine, One gets tired, indeed, what- 
ever may be the conception and execution of it, of 
seeing that monotonous and agonized form forever 
exhibited in one prescriptive attitude of torture. 
But the Magdalen, clinging to the cross with the 



142 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

look of passive and gentle despair beaming from be- 
neath her bright flaxen hair; and the figure of St. 
John, with his looks uplifted in passionate compas- 
sion, his hands clasped, and his fingers twisting 
themselves together, as it were, with involuntary an- 
guish, his feet almost writhing up from the ground 
with the same sympathy, and the whole of this ar- 
rayed in colors of a diviner nature, yet most like 
nature's self; — of the contemplation of this one 
would never weary. 

There was a " Fortune/' too, of Guido ; a piece 
of mere beauty, There was the figure of Fortune on 
a globe, eagerly proceeding onwards, and Love was 
trying to catch her back by the hair, and her face 
was half turned towards him ; her long chestnut hair 
was floating in the stream of the wind, and threw its 
shadow over her fair forehead. Her hazel eyes 
were fixed on her pursuer, with a meaning look of 
playfulness, and a light smile was hovering on her 
lips. The colors which arrayed her delicate limbs 
were ethereal and warm. 

But perhaps the most interesting of all the pic- 
tures of Guido which I saw was a Madonna Lattante. 
She is leaning over her child, and the maternal feel- 
ings with which she is pervaded are shadowed forth 
on her soft and gentle countenance, and in her 
simple and affectionate gestures there is what an un- 
feeling observer would call a dulness in the expres- 
sion of her face ; her eyes are almost closed ; her lip 
depressed ; there is a serious, and even a heavy re- 
laxation, as it were, of all the muscles which are 
called into action by ordinary emotions : but it is 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 143 

only as if the spirit of love, almost insupportable 
from its intensity, were brooding over and weighing 
down the soul, or whatever it is, without which the 
material frame is inanimate and inexpressive. 

There is another painter here, called Franceschini, 
a Bolognese, who, though certainly very inferior to 
Guido, is yet a person of excellent powers. One en- 
tire church, that of Santa Catarina, is covered by his 
works. I do not know whether any of his pictures 
have ever been seen in England. His coloring is 
less warm than that of Guido, but nothing can be 
more clear and delicate ; it is as if he could have 
dipped his pencil in the hues of some serenest and 
star-shining twilight. His forms have the same deli- 
cacy and aerial loveliness ; their eyes are all bright 
with innocence and love • their lips scarce divided 
by some gentle and sweet emotion His winged chil- 
dren are the loveliest ideal beings ever created by the 
human mind. These are generally, whether in the 
capacity of Cherubim or Cupid, accessories to the rest 
of the picture ; and the underplot of their lovely and 
infantine play is something almost pathetic, from the 
excess of its unpretending beauty. One of the best 
of his pieces is an Annunciation of the Virgin : the 
Angel is beaming in beauty ; the Virgin, soft, retiring, 
and simple. 

We saw, besides, one picture of Raphael, — St. 
Cecilia. This is in another and higher style ; you 
forget that it is a picture as you look at it, and yet it 
is most unlike any of those things which we call real- 
ity. It is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems 
to have been conceived and executed in a similar 



144 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

state of feeling to that which produced among the 
ancients those perfect specimens of poetry and 
sculpture which are the baffling models of succeed- 
ing generations. There is a unity and a perfection 
in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure, 
St. Cecilia, seems rapt in such inspiration as pro- 
duced her image in the painter's mind : her deep, 
dark, eloquent eyes lifted up ; her chestnut hair 
flung back from her forehead ; she holds an organ 
in her hands ; her countenance, as it were, calmed 
by the depth of its passion and rapture, and pene- 
trated throughout with the warm and radiant light of 
life. She is listening to the music of heaven, and, as 
I imagine, has just ceased to sing, for the four figures 
that surround her evidently point, by their attitudes, 
towards her ; particularly St. John, who, with a ten- 
der yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance 
towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. 
At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken 
and unstrung. Of the coloring I do not speak; it 
eclipses Nature, yet it has all her truth and softness. 

We saw some pictures of Domenichino, Caracci, 
Albano, Guercino, Elizabetta Sirani. The two for- 
mer — remember, I do not pretend to taste — I 
cannot admire. Of the latter there are some beauti- 
ful Madonnas. There are several of Guercino, which 
they said were very fine. I dare say they were, for 
the strength and complication of his figures made my 
head turn round. One, indeed, was certainly pow- 
erful. It was the representation of the founder of 
the Carthusians exercising his austerities in the des- 
ert, with a youth as his attendant, kneeling beside 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 145 

him at an altar : on another altar stood a skull and a 
crucifix ; and around were the rocks and the trees of 
the wilderness, I never saw such a figure as this 
fellow. His face was wrinkled like a dried snake's 
skin, and drawn in long hard lines ; his very hands 
were wrinkled. He looked like an animated mummy. 
He was clothed in a loose dress of death-colored 
flannel, such as you might fancy a shroud might be 
after it had wrapped a corpse a month or two. It 
had a yellow, putrified, ghastly hue, which it cast on 
all the objects around, so that the hands and face of 
the Carthusian and his companion were jaundiced by 
this sepulchral glimmer. Why write books against 
religion, when we may hang up such pictures? But 
the world either will not or cannot see. The gloomy 
effect of this was softened, and, at the same time, its 
sublimity diminished, by the figure of the Virgin and 
Child in the sky, looking down with admiration on 
the monk, and a beautiful flying figure of an angel. 

Enough of pictures. I saw the place where Guido 
and his mistress, Elizabetta Sirani, were buried. This 
lady was poisoned at the age of twenty-six, by another 
lover, a rejected one of course. Our guide said she 
was very ugly, and that we might see her portrait 
to-morrow. 

Well, good night, for the present. " To-morrow 
to fresh fields and pastures new." 

November 16. 
To-day we first went to see those divine pictures 
of Raffaelle and Guido again, and then rode up the 
mountains behind this city, to visit a chapel dedi- 



146 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

cated to the Madonna. It made me melancholy to 
see that they had been varnishing and restoring some 
of these pictures, and that even some had been 
pierced by the French bayonets. These are symp- 
toms of the mortality of man. and perhaps few 
of his works are more evanescent than paintings. 
Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty centuries, 
— the Apollo and the Venus are as they were. But 
books are perhaps the only productions of man 
coeval with the human race. Sophocles and Shake- 
speare can be produced and reproduced forever. 
But how evanescent are paintings ! and must neces- 
sarily be. Those of Zeuxis and Apelles are no more ; 
and perhaps they bore the same relation to Homer 
and ^Eschylus that those of Guido and RafTaelle 
bear to Dante and Petrarch. There is one refuge 
from the despondency of this contemplation. The 
material part, indeed, of their works must perish, but 
they survive in the mind of man, and the remem- 
brances connected with them are transmitted from 
generation to generation. The poet embodies them 
in his creations ; the systems of philosophers are 
modelled to gentleness by their contemplation ; 
opinion, that legislator, is infected with their in- 
fluence ; men become better and wiser ; and the 
unseen seeds are perhaps thus sown, which shall 
produce a plant more excellent even than that from 
which they fell. But all this might as well be said 
or thought at Marlow as Bologna. 

The chapel of the Madonna is a very pretty Corin- 
thian building, very beautiful indeed. It commands 
a fine view of these fertile plains, the many-folded 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 147 

Apennines, and the city. I have just returned from 
a moonlight walk through Bologna. It is a city of 
colonnades, and the effect of moonlight is strikingly 
picturesque. There are two towers here, — one four 
hundred feet high, — ugly things, built of brick, which 
lean both different ways ; and with the delusion of 
moonlight shadows, you might almost fancy that the 
city is rocked by an earthquake. They say they 
were built so on purpose ; but I observe in all the 
plain of Lombardy the church towers lean. 

Adieu. — God grant you patience to read this long 
letter, and courage to support the expectation of the 
next. Pray part them from the Cobbetts on your 
breakfast table, — they may fight it out in your 
mind. 



XLIII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Rome, November 20, 18 18. 
My dear P., — Behold me in the capital of the 
vanished world ! But I have seen nothing except 
St. Peter's and the Vatican, overlooking the city in 
the mist of distance, and the Dogana, where they 
took us to have our luggage examined, which is 
built between the ruins of a temple to Antoninus 
Pius. The Corinthian columns rise over the dwin- 
dled palaces of the modern town, and the wrought 
cornice is changed on one side, as it were, to masses 
of wave-worn precipices, which overhang you, far, 
far on high. 



148 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I take advantage of this rainy evening, and before 
Rome has effaced all other recollections, to endeavor 
to recall the vanished scenes through which we have 
passed. We left Bologna, I forget on what day, 
and passing by Rimini, Fano, and Foligno, along 
the Via Flaminia and Terni, have arrived at Rome 
after ten days' somewhat tedious, but most interest- 
ing journey. The most remarkable things we saw 
were the Roman excavations in the rock, and the 
great waterfall of Terni. 

From Fano we left the coast of the Adriatic, and 
entered the Apennines, following the course of the 
Metaurus, the banks of which were the scene of the 
defeat of Asdrubal : and it is said (you can refer to 
the book) that Livy has given a very exact and 
animated description of it. I forget all about it, but 
shall look as soon as our boxes are opened. Follow- 
ing the river, the vale contracts, the banks of the 
river become steep and rocky, the forests of oak and 
ilex which overhang its emerald-colored stream cling 
to their abrupt precipices. About four miles from 
Fossombrone, the river forces for itself a passage 
between the walls and toppling precipices of the 
loftiest Apennines, which are here rifted to their 
base, and undermined by the narrow and tumultuous 
torrent. It was a cloudy morning, and we had no 
conception of the scene that awaited us. Suddenly 
the low clouds were struck by the clear north wind, 
and, like curtains of the finest gauze removed one 
by one, were drawn from before the mountain, whose 
heaven-cleaving pinnacles and black crags overhang- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 149 

ing one another stood at length defined in the light 
of day. The road runs parallel to the river, at a 
considerable height, and is carried through the moun- 
tain by a vaulted cavern. The marks of the chisel 
of the legionaries of the Roman Consul are yet 
evident. 

We passed on day after day, until we came to 
Spoleto, I think the most romantic city I ever saw. 
There is here an aqueduct of astonishing elevation, 
which unites two rocky mountains : there is the 
path of a torrent below, whitening the green dell 
with its broad and barren track of stones, and above 
there is a castle, apparently of great strength and of 
tremendous magnitude, which overhangs the city, 
and whose marble bastions are perpendicular with 
the precipice. I never saw a more impressive 
picture, in which the shapes of nature are of the 
grandest order, but over which the creations of man, 
sublime from their antiquity and greatness, seem to 
predominate. The castle was built by Belisarius or 
Narses, I forget which, but was of that epoch. 

From Spoleto we went to Terni. and saw the 
cataract of the Velino. The glaciers of Montanvert 
and the source of the Arveiron is the grandest spec- 
tacle I ever saw. This is the second. Imagine a river 
sixty feet in breadth, with a vast volume of waters, 
the outlet of a great lake among the higher moun- 
tains, falling three hundred feet into a sightless gulf 
of snow-white vapor, which bursts up forever and 
forever from a circle of black crags, and thence, 
leaping downwards, make five or six other cataracts, 
each fifty or a hundred feet high, which exhibit, on a 



150 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

smaller scale, and with beautiful and sublime variety, 
the same appearances. But words (and far less 
could painting) will not express it. Stand upon the 
brink of the platform of cliff, which is directly oppo- 
site. You see the ever-moving water stream down. 
It comes in thick and tawny folds, flaking off like 
solid snow gliding down a mountain. It does not 
seem hollow within, but without it is unequal, like 
the folding of linen thrown carelessly down; your 
eye follows it, and it is lost below ; not in the black 
rocks which gird it around, but in its own foam and 
spray, in the cloud-like vapor boiling up from below, 
which is not like rain, nor mist, nor spray, nor foam, 
but water, in a shape wholly unlike anything I ever 
saw before. It is as white as snow, but thick and 
impenetrable to the eye. The very imagination is 
bewildered in it. A thunder comes up from the 
abyss wonderful to hear, for, though it ever sounds, 
it is never the same, but, modulated by the changing 
motion, rises and falls intermittingly ; we passed 
half an hour in one spot looking at it, and thought 
but a few minutes had gone by. The surrounding 
scenery is, in its kind, the loveliest and most sublime 
that can be conceived. In our first walk we passed 
through some olive groves, of large and ancient trees, 
whose hoary and twisted trunks leaned in all direc- 
tions. We then crossed a path of orange trees by 
the river side, laden with their golden fruit, and came 
to a forest of ilex of a large size, whose evergreen 
and acorn-bearing boughs were intertwined over our 
winding path. Around, hemming in the narrow vale, 
were pinnacles of lofty mountains of pyramidical rock 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 151 

clothed with all evergreen plants and trees ; the vast 
pine, whose feathery foliage trembled in the blue air, 
the ilex, that ancestral inhabitant of these mountains, 
the arbutus with its crimson-colored fruit and glitter- 
ing leaves. After an hour's walk, we came beneath 
the cataract of Terni, within the distance of half a 
mile ; nearer you cannot approach, for the Nar, 
which has here its confluence with the Velino, bars 
the passage. We then crossed the river formed by 
this confluence, over a narrow natural bridge of rock, 
and saw the cataract from the platform I first men- 
tioned. We think of spending some time next year 
near this waterfall. The inn is very bad, or we 
should have stayed there longer. 

We came from Terni last night to a place called 
Nepi, and to-day arrived at Rome across the 
much-belied Campagna di Roma, a place I confess 
infinitely to my taste. It is a flattering picture of 
Bagshot Heath. But then there are the Apennines 
on one side, and Rome and St. Peter's on the other, 
and it is intersected by perpetual dells clothed with 
arbutus and ilex. Adieu. 



XLIV. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Naples, December 22, 18 18. 
My dear P., — I have received a letter from you 
here, dated November 1st; you see the reciprocation 
of letters from the term of our travels is more slow. 



152 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I entirely agree with what you say about " Childe Har- 
old." The spirit in which it is written is, if insane, the 
most wicked and mischievous insanity that ever was 
given forth. It is a kind of obstinate and self-willed 
folly, in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated 
with him in vain on the tone of mind from which 
such a view of things alone arises. For its real root 
is very different from its apparent one. Nothing can 
be less sublime than the true source of these ex- 
pressions of contempt and desperation. The fact is, 
that, first, the Italian women with whom he associates 
are perhaps the most contemptible of all who exist 
under the moon, — the most ignorant, the most dis- 
gusting, the most bigoted ; countesses [who] smell so 
strongly of garlic that an ordinary Englishman cannot 
approach them. Well, L. B. is familiar with the low- 
est sort of these women, the people his gondolieri 
pick up in the streets. He associates with wretches 
who seem almost to have lost the gait and physiog- 
nomy of man, and who do not scruple to avow prac- 
tices which are not only not named, but I believe 
seldom even conceived in England. He says he dis- 
approves, but he endures. He is heartily and deeply 
discontented with himself; and contemplating in the 
distorted mirror of his own thoughts the nature and 
the destiny of man, what can he behold but objects 
of contempt and despair? But that he is a great 
poet, I think the address to Ocean proves. And he 
has a certain degree of candor while you talk to him, 
but unfortunately it does not outlast your departure. 
No, I do not doubt, and, for his sake, I ought to 
hope, that his present career must end soon in some 
violent circumstance. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 153 

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen the ruins of 
Rome, the Vatican, St. Peter's, and all the miracles 
of ancient and modern art contained in that majestic 
city. The impression of it exceeds anything I have 
ever experienced in my travels. We stayed there 
only a week, intending to return at the end of Feb- 
ruary, and devote two or three months to its mines of 
inexhaustible contemplation, to which period I refer 
you for a minute account of it. We visited the Forum 
and the ruins of the Coliseum every day. The Col- 
iseum is unlike any work of human hands I ever saw 
before. It is of enormous height and circuit, and the 
arches built of massy stones are piled on one another, 
and jut into the blue air, shattered into the forms of 
overhanging rocks. It has been changed by time 
into the image of an amphitheatre of rocky hills 
overgrown by the wild olive, the myrtle, and the fig 
tree, and threaded by little paths, which wind among 
its ruined stairs and immeasurable galleries : the 
copsewood overshadows you as you wander through 
its labyrinths, and the wild weeds of this climate of 
flowers bloom under your feet. The arena is covered 
with grass, and pierces, like the skirts of a natural 
plain, the chasms of the broken arches around. 1 But 
a small part of the exterior circumference remains. 
It is exquisitely light and beautiful ; and the effect of 
the perfection of its architecture, adorned with ranges 
of Corinthian pilasters, supporting a bold cornice, 
is such as to diminish the effect of its greatness. 

1 A friend who has recently visited Rome tells me that this 
exquisite mass of foliage has been torn away, leaving the ruin 
perfectly bare. 



1 54 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

The interior is all ruin. I can scarcely believe that 
when incrusted with Dorian marble and ornamented 
by columns of Egyptian granite its effect could have 
been so sublime and so impressive as in its present 
state. It is open to the sky, and it was the clear and 
sunny weather of the end of November in this cli- 
mate when we visited it, day after day. 

Near it is the arch of Constantine, or rather the 
arch of Trajan ; for the servile and avaricious Senate 
of degraded Rome ordered that the monument of 
his predecessor should be demolished in order to 
dedicate one to the Christian reptile who had crept 
among the blood of his murdered family to the su- 
preme power. It is exquisitely beautiful and perfect. 
The Forum is a plain in the midst of Rome, a kind of 
desert, full of heaps of stones and pits, and, though 
so near the habitations of men, is the most desolate 
place you can conceive. The ruins of temples stand 
in and around it, shattered columns and ranges of 
others complete, supporting cornices of exquisite 
workmanship, and vast vaults of shattered domes 
distinct with regular compartments, once filled with 
sculptures of ivory or brass. The temples of Jupiter, 
and Concord, and Peace, and the Sun, and the Moon, 
and Vesta, are all within a short distance of this spot. 
Behold the wrecks of what a great nation once ded- 
icated to the abstractions of the mind ! Rome is a 
city, as it were, of the dead, or rather of those who 
cannot die, and who survive the puny generations 
which inhabit and pass over the spot which they have 
made sacred to eternity. In Rome, at least in the 
first enthusiasm of your recognition of ancient time, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 155 

you see nothing of the Italians. The nature of the 
city assists the delusion, for its vast and antique walls 
describe a circumference of sixteen miles, and thus 
the population is thinly scattered over this space, 
nearly as great as London. Wide wild fields are en- 
closed within it, and there are grassy lanes and 
copses winding among the ruins, and a great green 
hill, lonely and bare, which overhangs the Tiber. The 
gardens of the modern palaces are like wild woods of 
cedar, and cypress, and pine, and the neglected walks 
are overgrown with weeds. The English burying- 
place is a green slope near the walls, under the py- 
ramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, I think, the most 
beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld. To 
see the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we 
first visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear the 
whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees 
which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the 
soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to 
mark the tombs, mostly of women and young people 
who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, 
desire the sleep they seem to sleep. Such is the hu- 
man mind, and so it peoples with its wishes vacancy 
and oblivion. 1 

1 In " Adonais " Shelley gives an exquisite description of 
this "most beautiful and solemn cemetery," where Keats lay 
buried, and where his own dust reposed but a few years later. 
The following lines sound almost like an extract from this 
letter changed into musical verse : — 

" Go thou to Rome, — at once the paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 



156 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I have told you little about Rome ; but I reserve 
the Pantheon, and St. Peter's, and the Vatican, and 
RarTaelle, for my return. About a fortnight ago I left 

Rome, and Mary and C followed in three days, 

for it was necessary to procure lodgings here without 
alighting at an inn. From my peculiar mode of 
travelling I saw little of the country, but could just 
observe that the wild beauty of the scenery and the 
barbarous ferocity of the inhabitants progressively in- 
creased. On entering Naples, the first circumstance 
that engaged my attention was an assassination. A 
youth ran out of a shop, pursued by a woman with a 
bludgeon, and a man armed with a knife. The man 
overtook him, and with one blow in the neck laid 
him dead in the road. On my expressing the 
emotions of horror and indignation which I felt, a 
Calabrian priest, who travelled with me, laughed 
heartily, and attempted to quiz me, as what the 

And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 

The bones of desolation's nakedness, 
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, 
Where, like an infant's smile over the dead 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 

"And gray walls moulder round, on which dull time 

Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 

Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 

This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath 

A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death, 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath/' 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 157 

English call a flat. I never felt such an inclination 
to beat any one. Heaven knows I have little power, 
but he saw that I looked extremely displeased, and 
was silent. This same man, a fellow of gigantic 
strength and stature, had expressed the most frantic 
terror of robbers on the road ; he cried at the sight 
of my pistol, and it had been with great difficulty 
that the joint exertions of myself and the vetturino 
had quieted his hysterics. 

But external nature in these delightful regions 
contrasts with and compensates for the deformity 
and degradation of humanity. We have a lodging 
divided from the sea by the royal gardens, and 
from our windows we see perpetually the blue waters 
of the bay, forever changing, yet forever the same, 
and encompassed by the mountainous island of Ca- 
preae, the lofty peaks which overhang Salerno, and 
the woody hill of Posilippo, whose promontories 
hide from us Misenum and the lofty isle Inarime, 
which, with its divided summit, forms the opposite 
horn of the bay. From the pleasant walks of the 
garden we see Vesuvius ; a smoke by day and a fire 
by night is seen upon its summit, and the glassy sea 
often reflects its light or shadow. The climate is 
delicious. We sit without a fire, with the windows 
open, and have almost all the productions of an 
English summer. The weather is usually like what 
Wordsworth calls "the first fine day of March " ; 
sometimes very much warmer, though perhaps it 
wants that " each minute sweeter than before, " 
which gives an intoxicating sweetness to the awaken- 
ing of the earth from its winter's sleep in England. 



158 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

We have made two excursions, one to Baiae and one 
to Vesuvius and we propose to visit, successively, 
the islands, Paestum, Pompeii, and Beneventum. 

We set off an hour after sunrise one radiant morn- 
ing in a little boat ; there was not a cloud in the sky, 
nor a wave upon the sea, which was so translucent 
that you could see the hollow caverns clothed with 
the glaucous sea-moss, and the leaves and branches 
of those delicate weeds that pave the unequal bottom 
of the water. 1 As noon approached, the heat, and 
especially the light, became intense. We passed 
Posilippo, and came first to the eastern point of the 
bay of Pozzuoli, which is within the great bay of 
Naples, and which again encloses that of Baiae. Here 
are lofty rocks and craggy islets, with arches and 
portals of precipice standing in the sea, and enor- 
mous caverns, which echoed faintly with the murmur 
of the languid tide. This is called La Scuola di 
Virgilio. We then went directly across to the prom- 
ontory of Misenum, leaving the precipitous island 
of Nesida on the right. Here we were conducted 
to see the Mare Morto, and the Elysian Fields ; the 
spot on which Virgil places the scenery of the Sixth 
^Eneid. Though extremely beautiful, as a lake, and 
woody hills, and this divine sky must make it, I 
confess my disappointment. The guide showed us 
an antique cemetery, where the niches used for plac- 
ing the cinerary urns of the dead yet remain. We 
then coasted the bay of Baiae to the left, in which 

1 Compare this description with his note to the "Ode to 
the West Wind/' and with the third stanza of that poem, 
which was written shortly after this letter. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 159 

we saw many picturesque and interesting ruins ; but 
I have to remark that we never disembarked but we 
were disappointed, while from the boat the effect 
of the scenery was inexpressibly delightful. The 
colors of the water and the air breathe over all 
things here the radiance of their own beauty. After 
passing the bay of Baiae, and observing the ruins of 
its antique grandeur standing like rocks in the trans- 
parent sea under our boat, we landed to visit Lake 
Avernus. We passed through the cavern of the Sibyl 
(not Virgil's Sibyl), which pierces one of the hills 
which circumscribe the lake, and came to a calm 
and lovely basin of water, surrounded by dark woody 
hills, and profoundly solitary. Some vast ruins of 
the temple of Pluto stand on a lawny hill on one side 
of it, and are reflected in its windless mirror. It is 
far more beautiful than the Elysian Fields ; but there 
are all the materials for beauty in the latter, and the 
Avernus was once a chasm of deadly and pestilential 
vapors. About half a mile from Avernus, a high 
hill, called Monte Novo, was thrown up by volcanic 
fire. 

Passing onward we came to Pozzuoli, the ancient 
Dicaearchea, where there are the columns remaining 
of a temple to Serapis, and the wreck of an enor- 
mous amphitheatre, changed, like the Coliseum, into 
a natural hill of the overteeming vegetation. Here 
also is the Solfatara, of which there is a poetical 
description in the Civil War of Petronius, beginning, 
" Est locus," and in which the verses of the poet 
are infinitely finer than what he describes, for it is 
not a very curious place. After seeing these things, 



160 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

we returned by moonlight to Naples in our boat. 
What colors there were in the sky, what radiance 
in the evening star, and how the moon was encom- 
passed by a light unknown to our regions ! 

Our next excursion was to Vesuvius. We went to 
Resina in a carriage, where Mary and I mounted 

mules, and C was carried in a chair on the 

shoulders of four men, much like a member of Par- 
liament after he has gained his election, and looking, 
with less reason, quite as frightened. So we arrived 
at the hermitage of San Salvador, where an old her- 
mit, belted with rope, set forth the plates for our 
refreshment. 

Vesuvius is, after the glaciers, the most impressive 
exhibition of the energies of nature I ever saw. It 
has not the immeasurable greatness, the overpower- 
ing magnificence, nor, above all, the radiant beauty 
of the glaciers ; but it has all their character of tre- 
mendous and irresistible strength. From Resina to 
the hermitage you wind up the mountain, and cross 
a vast stream of hardened lava, which is an actual 
image of the waves of the sea, changed into hard 
black stone by enchantment. The lines of the boil- 
ing flood seem to hang in the air, and it is difficult 
to believe that the billows which seem hurrying down 
upon you are not actually in motion. This plain 
was once a sea of liquid fire. From the hermitage 
we crossed another vast stream of lava, and then 
went on foot up the cone. This is the only part of 
the ascent in which there is any difficulty, and that 
difficulty has been much exaggerated. It is com- 
posed of rocks of lava, and declivities of ashes ; by 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 161 

ascending the former and descending the latter, 
there is very little fatigue. On the summit is a kind 
of irregular plain, the most horrible chaos that can 
be imagined ; riven into ghastly chasms, and heaped 
up with tumuli of great stones and cinders, and 
enormous rocks blackened and calcined, which had 
been thrown from the volcano upon one another in 
terrible confusion. In the midst stands the conical 
hill from which volumes of smoke and the fountains 
of liquid fire are rolled forth forever. The mountain 
is at present in a slight state of eruption, and a thick, 
heavy, white smoke is perpetually rolled out, inter- 
rupted by enormous columns of an impenetrable 
black, bituminous vapor, which is hurled up, fold 
after fold, into the sky, with a deep, hollow sound, 
and fiery stones are rained down from its darkness, 
and a black shower of ashes fell even where we sat. 
The lava, like the glacier, creeps on perpetually, with 
a crackling sound as of suppressed fire. There are 
several springs of lava ; and in one place it rushes 
precipitously over a high crag, rolling down the half- 
molten rocks and its own overhanging waves, a cata- 
ract of quivering fire. We approached the extremity 
of one of the rivers of lava ; it is about twenty feet in 
breadth and ten in height, and as the inclined plane 
was not rapid, its motion was very slow. We saw the 
masses of its dark exterior surface detach themselves 
as it moved, and betray the depth of the liquid flame. 
In the day the fire is but slightly seen ; you only ob- 
serve a tremulous motion in the air, and streams and 
fountains of white sulphurous smoke. 

At length we saw the sun sink between Capreae 



162 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and Inarime, and, as the darkness increased, the ef- 
fect of the fire became more beautiful. We were, 
as it were, surrounded by streams and cataracts of 
the red and radiant fire ; and in the midst, from the 
column of bituminous smoke shot up into the air, fell 
the vast masses of rock, white with the light of their 
intense heat, leaving behind them through the dark 
vapor trains of splendor. We descended by torch- 
light, and I should have enjoyed the scenery on my 
return, but they conducted me, I know not how, to 
the hermitage in a state of intense bodily suffering, 
the worst effect of which was spoiling the pleasure of 

Mary and C . Our guides on the occasion were 

complete savages. You have no idea of the horrible 
cries which they suddenly utter, no one knows why ; 

the clamor, the vociferation, the tumult. C in 

her palanquin suffered most from it ; and when I 
had gone on before, they threatened to leave her in 
the middle of the road, which they would have done 
had not my Italian servant promised them a beating, 
after which they became quiet. Nothing, however, 
can be more picturesque than the gestures and the 
physiognomies of these savage people. And when, 
in the darkness of night, they unexpectedly begin to 
sing in chorus some fragments of their wild but 
sweet national music, the effect is exceedingly fine. 

Since I wrote this, I have seen the museum of 
this city. Such statues ! There is a Venus, an 
ideal shape of the most winning loveliness. A Bac- 
chus, more sublime than any living being. A Satyr, 
making love to a youth, in which the expressed life 
of the sculpture and the inconceivable beauty of the 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 163 

form of the youth overcome one's repugnance to the 
subject. There are multitudes of wonderfully fine 
statues found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. We 
are going to see Pompeii the first day that the sea is 
waveless. Herculaneum is almost filled up ; no more 
excavations are made ; the King bought the ground, 
and built a palace upon it. 

You don't see much of Hunt. I wish you could 
contrive to see him when you go to town, and ask 
him what he means to answer to Lord Byron's invi- 
tation. He has now an opportunity, if he likes, 
of seeing Italy. What do you think of joining his 
party, and paying us a visit next year, — I mean as 
soon as the reign of winter is dissolved ? Write to 
me your thoughts upon this. I cannot express to 
you the pleasure it would give me to welcome such 
a party. 

I have depression enough of spirits and not good 
health, though I believe the warm air of Naples does 
me good. We see absolutely no one here. 

Adieu, my dear P . 



XLV. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Naples, January 26, 1819. 

My dear P., — Your two letters arrived within a 

few days of each other, one being directed to Naples, 

and the other to Livorno. They are more welcome 

visitors to me than mine can be to you, — I writing as 



1 64 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

from sepulchres, you from the habitations of men yet 
unburied ; though the sexton, Castlereagh, after hav- 
ing dug their grave, stands with his spade in his hand, 
evidently doubting whether he will not be forced to 
occupy it himself. Your news about the bank-note 
trials is excellent good. Do I not recognize in it the 
influence of Cobbett ? You don't tell me what oc- 
cupies Parliament. I know you will laugh at my de- 
mand, and assure me that it is indifferent. Your 
pamphlet I want exceedingly to see. Your calcula- 
tions in the letter are clear, but require much oral 
explanation. You know I am an infernal arithmeti- 
cian. If none but me had contemplated " lucentem- 
que globum lunae, Titaniaque astra," the world would 
yet have doubted whether they were many hundred 
feet higher than the mountain tops. 

In my accounts of pictures and things, I am more 
pleased to interest you than the many ; and this is 
fortunate, because, in the first place, I have no idea of 
attempting the latter, and if I did attempt it I should 
assuredly fail. A perception of the beautiful charac- 
terizes those who differ from ordinary men, and those 
who can perceive it would not buy enough to pay the 
printer. Besides, I keep no journal, and the only 
records of my voyage will be the letters I send you. 
The bodily fatigue of standing for hours in. galleries 
exhausts me ; I believe that I don't see half that I 
ought, on that account. And then we know nobody ; 
and the common Italians are so sullen and stupid, 
it's impossible to get information from them. At 
Rome, where the people seem superior to any in 
Italy, I cannot fail to stumble on something more. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 165 

Oh, if I had health, and strength, and equal spirits, 
what boundless intellectual improvement might I not 
gather in this wonderful country ! At present I write 
little else but poetry, and little of that. My first act 
of u Prometheus " is complete, and I think you would 
like it. I consider poetry very subordinate to moral 
and political science, and if I were well, certainly I 
would aspire to the latter ; for I can conceive a great 
work, embodying the discoveries of all ages, and 
harmonizing the contending creeds by which man- 
kind have been ruled. Far from me is such an at- 
tempt, and I shall be content, by exercising my fancy, 
to amuse myself, and perhaps some others, and cast 
what weight I can into the scale of that balance, 
which the Giant of Arthegall holds. 

Since you last heard from me, we have been to see 
Pompeii, and are waiting now for the return of spring 
weather, to visit, first Paestum, and then the islands ; 
after which we shall return to Rome. I was aston- 
ished at the remains of this city ; I had no concep- 
tion of anything so perfect yet remaining. 

We entered the town from the side towards the 
sea, and first saw two theatres ; one more magnifi- 
cent than the other, strewn with the ruins of the 
white marble which formed their seats and cornices, 
wrought with deep, bold sculpture. In the front, be- 
tween the stage and the seats, is the circular space 
occasionally occupied by the chorus. The stage is 
very narrow, but long, and divided from this space by 
a narrow enclosure parallel to it, I suppose for the 
orchestra. On each side are the Consuls' boxes, and 



1 66 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

below, in the theatre at Herculaneum, were found 
two equestrian statues of admirable workmanship, 
occupying the same place as the great bronze lamps 
did at Drury Lane. The smallest of the theatres is 
said to have been comic, though I should doubt 
From both you see, as you sit on the seats, a prospect 
of the most wonderful beauty. 

You then pass through the ancient streets; they 
are very narrow, and the houses rather small, but all 
constructed on an admirable plan, especially for this 
climate. The rooms are built round a court, or some- 
times two, according to the extent of the house. In 
the midst is a fountain, sometimes surrounded with 
a portico, supported on fluted columns of white 
stucco ; the floor is paved with mosaic, sometimes 
wrought in imitation of vine leaves, sometimes in 
quaint figures, and more or less beautiful, according 
to the rank of the inhabitant. There were paintings 
on all, but most of them have been removed to dec- 
orate the royal museums. Little winged figures, and 
small ornaments of exquisite elegance, yet remain. 
There is an ideal life in the forms of these paintings 
of an incomparable loveliness, though most are evi- 
dently the work of very inferior artists. It seems as 
if, from the atmosphere of mental beauty which sur- 
rounded them, every human being caught a splendor 
not his own. In one house you see how the bed- 
rooms were managed. A small sofa was built up, 
where the cushions were placed; two pictures, one 
representing Diana and Endymion, the other Venus 
and Mars, decorate the chamber ; and a little niche, 
which contains the statue of a domestic god. The 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 167 

floor is composed of a rich mosaic of the rarest mar- 
bles, agate, jasper, and porphyry ; it looks to the 
marble fountain and the snow-white columns, whose 
entablatures strew the floor of the portico they sup- 
ported. The houses have only one story, and the 
apartments, though not large ? are very lofty. A great 
advantage results from this, wholly unknown in our 
cities. The public buildings, whose ruins are now 
forests, as it were, of white fluted columns, and which 
then supported entablatures, loaded with sculptures, 
were seen on all sides over the roofs of the houses. 
This was the excellence of the ancients. Their 
private expenses were comparatively moderate ; the 
dwelling of one of the chief senators of Pompeii is 
elegant indeed, and adorned with most beautiful spe- 
cimens of art, but small. But their public buildings 
are everywhere marked by the bold and grand designs 
of an unsparing magnificence. In the little town of 
Pompeii, (it contained about twenty thousand inhab- 
itants,) it is wonderful to see the number and the 
grandeur of their public buildings. Another advan- 
tage, too, is, that in the present case the glorious 
scenery around is not shut out, and that, unlike the 
inhabitants of the Cimmerian ravines of modern 
cities, the ancient Pompeians could contemplate the 
clouds and the lamps of heaven, — could see the 
moon rise high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in 
the sea, tremulous with an atmosphere of golden 
vapor, between Inarime and Misenum. 

We next saw the temples. Of the temple of JEs- 
culapius little remains but an altar of black stone, 
adorned with a cornice imitating the scales of a ser- 



1 68 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

pent. His statue, in terra-cotta, was found in the 
cell. The temple of Isis is more perfect. It is sur- 
rounded by a portico of fluted columns, and in the 
area around it are two altars, and many ceppi for 
statues ; and a little chapel of white stucco, as hard 
as stone, of the most exquisite proportion ; its pan- 
els are adorned with figures in bas-relief, slightly 
indicated, but of a workmanship the most delicate 
and perfect that can be conceived. They are Egyp- 
tian subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who has 
harmonized all the unnatural extravagances of the 
original conception into the supernatural loveliness 
of his country's genius. They scarcely touch the 
ground with their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes 
seem in the place of wings. The temple in the 
midst, raised on a high platform and approached by 
steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, some 
of which we saw in the museum at Portici. It is 
small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a 
pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ionic columns of 
white stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look 
at it. 

Thence through other porticos and labyrinths of 
walls and columns (for I cannot hope to detail every- 
thing to you), we came to the Forum. 

Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and 
between the multitudinous shafts of the sun-shining 
columns was seen the sea, reflecting the purple 
heaven of noon above it, and supporting, as it were, 
on its line the dark lofty mountains of Sorrento, of a 
blue inexpressibly deep, and tinged towards their 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 169 

summits with streaks of new-fallen snow. Between 
was one small green island. To the right was Ca- 
preae, Inarime, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind 
was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth vol- 
umes of thick, white smoke, whose foam-like column 
was sometimes darted into the clear, dark sky, and 
fell in little streaks along the wind. Between Vesu- 
vius and the nearer mountains, as through a chasm, 
was seen the main line of the loftiest Apennines, to 
the east. The day was radiant and warm. Every 
now and then we heard the subterranean thunder of 
Vesuvius ; its distant deep peals seemed to shake the 
very air and light of day, which interpenetrated our 
frames with the sullen and tremendous sound. This 
sound was what the Greeks beheld (Pompeii, you 
know, was a Greek city). They lived in harmony 
with nature ; and the interstices of their incompara- 
ble columns were portals, as it were, to admit the 
spirit of beauty which animates this glorious universe 
to visit those whom it inspired. If such is Pompeii, 
what was Athens? What scene was exhibited from 
the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the temples of 
Hercules, and Theseus, and the Winds? the islands 
and the ^Egean Sea, the mountains of Argolis, and 
the peaks of Pindus and Olympus, and the darkness 
of the Boeotian forests interspersed ? 

Returning hence, and following the consular road, 
we came to the eastern gate of the city. The walls 
are of enormous strength, and enclose a space of 
three miles. On each side of the road beyond the 
gate are built the tombs. How unlike ours ! They 



170 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

seem not so much hiding-places for that which must 
decay, as voluptuous chambers for immortal spirits. 
They are of marble, radiantly white ; and two, espe- 
cially beautiful, are loaded with exquisite bas-reliefs. 
On the stucco wall that encloses them are little em- 
blematic figures, of a relief exceedingly low, of dead 
and dying animals, and little winged genii, and fe- 
male forms bending in groups in some funereal office. 
The higher reliefs represent, one a nautical subject, 
and the other a Bacchanalian one. Within the cell 
stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, sometimes 
more. It is said that paintings were found within, 
which are now, as has been everything movable in 
Pompeii, removed, and scattered about in royal mu- 
seums. These tombs were the most impressive 
things of all. The wild woods surround them on 
either side, and along the broad stones of the paved 
road which divides them, you hear the late leaves of 
autumn shiver and rustle in the stream of the incon- 
stant wind, as it were like the step of ghosts. The 
radiance and magnificence of these dwellings of the 
dead, the white freshness of the scarcely finished 
marble, the impassioned or imaginative life of the 
figures which adorn them, contrast strangely with 
the simplicity of the houses of those who were living 
when Vesuvius overwhelmed them. 

I have forgotten the amphitheatre, which is of great 
magnitude, though much inferior to the Coliseum. 
I now understand why the Greeks were such great 
poets ; and, above all, I can account, it seems to me, 
for the harmony, the unity, the perfection, the uni- 
form excellence, of all their works of art. They 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 171 

lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature, 
and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. 
Their theatres were all open to the mountains and 
the sky. Their columns, the ideal types of a sacred 
forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, admitted 
the light and wind : the odor and the freshness of 
the country penetrated the cities. Their temples 
were mostly upaithric ; and the flying clouds, the 
stars, or the deep sky, were seen above. Oh, but 
for that series of wretched wars which terminated in 
the Roman conquest of the world, . . . but for those 
changes that conducted Athens to its ruin, to what 
an eminence might not humanity have arrived ! 

In a short time I hope to tell you something of 
the museum of this city. 

You see how ill I follow the maxim of Horace, at 
least in its literal sense, " Nil admirari,' , — which I 
should say, " properes est una," — to prevent there 
ever being anything admirable in the world. Fortu- 
nately Plato is of my opinion ; and I had rather err 
with Plato than be right with Horace. 

At this moment I received your letter, indicat- 
ing that you are removing to London. I am very 
much interested in the subject of this change, and 
beg you would write me all the particulars of it. 
You will be able now to give me perhaps a closer 
insight into the politics of the times than was per- 
mitted you at Mario w. Of H I have a very 

slight opinion. There are rumors here of a revolu- 
tion in Spain. A ship came in twelve days from 
Catalonia, and brought a report that the King was 
massacred; that eighteen thousand insurgents sur- 



172 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

rounded Madrid ; but that before the popular party 
gained head enough, seven thousand were murdered 
by the Inquisition. Perhaps you know all by this 
time. The old King of Spain is dead here. Corbett 
is a fine v^vo-trows, — does his influence increase or 
diminish? What a pity that so powerful a genius 
should be combined with the most odious moral 
qualities. 

We have reports here of a change in the English 
ministry. To what does it amount? for, besides my 
national interest in it, I am on the watch to vindicate 
my most sacred rights, invaded by the chancery 
court. 

I suppose now we shall not see you in Italy this 
spring, whether Hunt comes or not. It 's probable 
I shall hear nothing from him for some months, 
particularly if he does not come. Give me ses 
nouvelles. 

I have scarcely been out since I wrote last. 
Adieu. Yours most faithfully. 



XLVI. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Naples, February 25, 1819. 
My dear Peacock, — I am much interested to 
hear your progress in the object of your removal to 
London. There is no person in the world who 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 173 

would more sincerely rejoice in any good that might 
befall you than I should. 

We are on the point of quitting Naples for 
Rome. The scenery which surrounds this city is 
more delightful than any within the immediate reach 
of civilized man. I do not think I have mentioned 
to you the Lago d' Agnano and the Caccia d' Ischieri, 
and I have since seen what obscures those lovely 
forms in my memory. They are both the craters of 
extinguished volcanoes, and nature has thrown forth 
forests of oak and ilex, and spread mossy lawns and 
clear lakes over the dead or sleeping fire. The first 
is a scene of a wider and milder character, with soft 
sloping wooded hills, and grassy declivities declining 
to the lake, and cultivated plains of vines woven 
upon poplar trees, bounded by the theatre of hills. 
Innumerable wild water birds, quite tame, inhabit 
this place. The other is a royal chase, is surrounded 
by steep and lofty hills, and only accessible through 
a wide gate of massy oak, from the vestibule of which 
the spectacle of precipitous hills, hemming in a nar- 
row and circular vale, is suddenly disclosed.' The 
hills are covered with thick woods of ilex, myrtle, and 
laurustinus ; the polished leaves of the ilex, as they 
wave in their multitudes under the partial blasts 
which rush through the chasms of the vale, glitter 
above the dark masses of foliage below, like the white 
foam of waves upon a deep blue sea. The plain so 
surrounded is at most three miles in circumference. 
It is occupied partly by a lake, with bold shores 
wooded by evergreens, and interrupted by a sylvan 
promontory of the wild forest, whose mossy boughs 



174 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

overhang its expanse, of a silent and purple darkness, 
like an Italian midnight ; and partly by the forest 
itself, of all gigantic trees, but the oak especially, 
whose jagged boughs, now leafless, are hoary with 
thick lichens, and loaded with the massy and deep 
foliage of the ivy. The effect of the dark eminences 
that surround this plain, seen through the boughs, 
is of an enchanting solemnity. (There we saw in 
one instance wild boars and a deer, and in another — 
a spectacle little suited to the antique and Latonian 
nature of the place — King Ferdinand in a winter 
enclosure, watching to shoot wild boars.) The un- 
derwood was principally evergreen, all lovely kinds of 
fern and furze ; the cytisus, a delicate kind of furze 
with a pretty yellow blossom, the myrtle, and the 
myrica. The willow trees had just begun to put 
forth their green and golden buds, and gleamed like 
points of lambent fire among the wintry forest. The 
Grotta del Cane, too, we saw, because other people 
see it ; but would not allow the dogs to be exhibited 
in torture for our curiosity. The poor little animals 
stood moving their tails in a slow and dismal manner, 
as if perfectly resigned to their condition, — a cur- 
like emblem of voluntary servitude. The effect of 
the vapor, which extinguishes a torch, is to cause 
suffocation at last, through a process which makes 
the lungs feel as if they were torn by sharp points 
within. So a surgeon told us, who tried the experi- 
ment on himself. 

There was a Greek city, sixty miles to the south 
of Naples, called Posidonia, now Pesto, where there 
still subsist three temples of Etruscan architecture, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 175 

one almost perfect. From this city we have just 
returned. The weather was most unfavorable for our 
expedition. After two months of cloudless serenity, 
it began raining cats and dogs. The first night we 
slept at Salerno, a large city situate in the recess of 
a deep bay, surrounded with stupendous mountains 
of the same name. A few miles from Torre del 
Greco we entered on the pass of the mountains, 
which is a line dividing the isthmus of those enor- 
mous piles of rock which compose the southern 
boundary of the bay of Naples, and the northern 
one of that of Salerno. On one side is a lofty coni- 
cal hill, crowned with the turrets of a ruined castle, 
and cut into platforms for cultivation, — at least every 
ravine and glen whose precipitous sides admitted of 
other vegetation but that of the rock-rooted ilex ; on 
the other, the ethereal snowy crags of an immense 
mountain, whose terrible lineaments were at intervals 
concealed or disclosed by volumes of dense clouds, 
rolling under the tempest. Half a mile from this 
spot, between orange and lemon groves of a lovely 
village, suspended as it were on an amphitheatral 
precipice, whose golden globes contrasted with the 
white walls and dark green leaves which they almost 
outnumbered, shone the sea. A burst of the declin- 
ing sunlight illumined it. The road led along the 
brink of the precipice towards Salerno. Nothing 
could be more glorious than the scene. The im- 
mense mountains covered with the rare and divine 
vegetation of this climate, with many-folding vales, 
and deep dark recesses, which the fancy scarcely 
could penetrate, descended from their snowy sum- 



176 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

mits precipitously to the sea. Before us was Salerno, 
built into a declining plain, between the mountains 
and the sea. Beyond, the other shore of sky-cleav- 
ing mountains, then dim with the mist of tempest. 
Underneath, from the base of the precipice where 
the road conducted, rocky promontories jutted into 
the sea, covered with olive and ilex woods, or with the 
ruined battlements of some Norman or Saracen for- 
tress. We slept at Salerno, and the next morning 
before daybreak proceeded to Posidonia. The night 
had been tempestuous, and our way lay by the sea 
sand. It was utterly dark, except when the long 
line of wave burst, with a sound like thunder, beneath 
the starless sky, and cast up a kind of mist of cold 
white lustre. When morning came, we found our- 
selves travelling in a wide desert plain, perpetually 
interrupted by wild irregular glens, and bounded on 
all sides by the Apennines and the sea. Sometimes 
it was covered with forest, sometimes dotted with 
underwood, or mere tufts of fern and furze, and the 
wintry dry tendrils of creeping plants. I have never, 
but in the Alps, seen an amphitheatre of mountains 
so magnificent. After travelling fifteen miles we 
came to a river, the bridge of which had been 
broken, and which was so swollen that the ferry 
would not take the carriage across. We had, there- 
fore, to walk seven miles of a muddy road which led 
to the ancient city across the desolate Maremma. 
The air was scented with the sweet smell of violets 
of an extraordinary size and beauty. At length we 
saw the sublime and massy colonnades, skirting the 
horizon of the wilderness. We entered by the 



PER CY B YSSHE SHELLE Y. 177 

ancient gate, which is now no more than a chasm 
in the rock-like wall. Deeply sunk in the ground 
beside it, were the ruins of a sepulchre, which the 
ancients were in the custom of building beside the 
public way. The first temple, which is the smallest, 
consists of an outer range of columns, quite perfect, 
and supporting a perfect architrave and two shattered 
frontispieces. The proportions are extremely massy, 
and the architecture entirely unornamented and sim- 
ple. These columns do not seem more than forty 
feet high, but the perfect proportions diminish the 
apprehension of their magnitude ; it seems as if 
inequality and irregularity of form were requisite to 
force on us the relative idea of greatness. The 
scene from between the columns of the temple con- 
sists, on one side, of the sea, to which the gentle 
hill on which it is built slopes, and on the other, of 
the grand amphitheatre of the loftiest Apennines, 
dark purple mountains, crowned with snow and in- 
tercepted there by long bars of hard and leaden- 
colored cloud. The effect of the jagged outline of 
mountains, through groups of enormous columns on 
one side, and on the other the level horizon of the 
sea, is inexpressibly grand. The second temple is 
much larger, and also more perfect. Beside the 
outer range of columns, it contains an interior range 
of column above column, and the ruins of a wall, 
which was the screen of the penetralia. Wi:h little 
diversity of ornament, the order of architecture is 
similar to that of the first temple. 

We only contemplated these sublime monuments 



178 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

for two hours, and of course could only bring away so 
imperfect a conception of them as is the shadow of 
some half-remembered dream. 

The royal collection of paintings in this city is suf- 
ficiently miserable. Perhaps the most remarkable is 
the original studio by Michael Angelo of the " Day of 
Judgment," which is painted in fresco on the Sixtine 
Chapel of the Vatican. It is there so defaced as to 
be wholly indistinguishable. I cannot but think the 
genius of this artist highly overrated. He has not 
only no temperance, no modesty, no feeling for the 
just boundaries of art, (and in these respects an 
admirable genius may err,) but he has no sense of 
beauty, and to want this is to want the sense of the 
creative power of mind. What is terror without a 
contrast with, and a connection with, loveliness. How 
well Dante understood this secret, — Dante, with whom 
this artist has been so presumptuously compared ! 
What a thing his u Moses " is ; how distorted from 
ail that is natural and majestic. ... In the picture 
to which I allude, God is leaning out of heaven. 
The Holy Ghost, in the shape of a dove, is under 
him. Under the Holy Ghost stands Jesus Christ, in 
an attitude of haranguing the assembly. This figure, 
which his subject, or rather the view which it became 
him to take of it, ought to have modelled of a calm, 
severe, awe-inspiring majesty, is in the attitude of 
commonplace resentment. On one side of this figure 
are the elect ; on the other, the host of heaven ; they 
ought to have been what the Christians call glorified 
bodies, floating onward, and radiant with that everlast- 
ing light (I speak in the spirit of their faith) which 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 179 

had consumed their mortal veil. They are in fact 
very ordinary people. Below is the ideal purgatory, I 
imagine, in mid air, in the shapes of spirits, some of 
whom demons are dragging down, others falling as it 
were by their own weight, others half suspended in 
that Mahomet-coffin kind of attitude which most 
moderate Christians, I believe, expect to assume. 
Every step towards hell approximates to the region 
of the artist's exclusive power. There is great imagi- 
nation in many of the situations of these unfortunate 
spirits. But hell and death are his real sphere. The 
bottom of the picture is divided by a lofty rock, in 
which there is a cavern whose entrance is thronged 
by devils, some coming in with spirits, some going out 
for prey. The blood-red light of the fiery abyss glows 
through their dark forms. On one side are the dev- 
ils in all hideous forms, struggling with the damned, 
who have received their sentence, and are chained in 
all forms of agony by knotted serpents, and writhing 
on the crags in every variety of torture. On the 
other are the dead, coming out of their graves, — hor- 
rible forms. Such is the famous " Day of Judgment " 
of Michael Angelo ; a kind of "Titus Andronicus " 
in painting, but the author surely no Shakespeare. 
The other paintings are one or two of Raffaelle or his 
pupils, very sweet and lovely. A " Danae " of Titian, 
a picture, the softest and most voluptuous form, with 
languid and uplifted eyes, and warm yet passive limbs. 
A " Madalena," by Guido, with dark brown hair, and 
dark brown eyes, and an earnest, soft, melancholy 
look.' And some excellent pictures, in point of ex- 
ecution, by Annibal Caracci. None others worth a 



i8o THE BEST LETTERS OF 

second look. Of the gallery of statues I cannot 
speak. They require a volume, not a letter. Still 
less what can I do at Rome ? 

I have just seen the Quarterly for September, not 
from my own box. I suppose there is no chance 
now of the organization of a review ! This is a great 
pity. The Quarterly is undoubtedly conducted with 
talent, great talent, and affords a dreadful preponder- 
ance against the cause of improvement. If a band of 
stanch reformers, resolute and skilful, were united 
in so close and constant a league as that in which in- 
terest and fanaticism have bound the members of that 
literary coalition ! 

Adieu. Address your next letter to Rome, whence 
you shall hear from me soon again. M. and C. unite 
with me in the very kindest remembrances. 



XLVII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Rome, March 23, 1819. 
My dear P., — I wrote to you the day before our 
departure from Naples. We came by slow journeys, 
with our own horses, to Rome, resting one day at 
Mola di Gaeta, at the inn called Villa di Cicerone, 
from being built on the ruins of his villa, whose im- 
mense substructions overhang the sea, and are scat- 
tered among the orange groves. Nothing can be 
lovelier than the scene from the terraces of the inn. 
On one side precipitous mountains, whose bases slope 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 181 

into an inclined plane of olive and orange copses, 
the latter forming, as it were, an emerald sky of 
leaves, starred with innumerable globes of their rip- 
ening fruit, whose rich splendor contrasted with the 
deep green foliage ; on the other the sea, bounded 
on one side by the antique town of Gaeta, on the 
other by what appears to be an island, the promon- 
tory of Circe. From Gaeta to Terracina the whole 
scenery is of the most sublime character. At Terra- 
cina, precipitous conical crags of immense height 
shoot into the sky and overhang the sea. At Albano, 
we arrived again in sight of Rome. Arches after 
arches in unending lines stretching across the unin- 
habited wilderness, the blue defined line of the moun- 
tains seen between them ; masses of nameless ruin 
standing like rocks out of the plain ; and the plain 
itself, with its billowy and unequal surface, announced 
the neighborhood of Rome. And what shall I say 
to you of Rome ? If I speak of the inanimate ruins, 
the rude stones piled upon stones, which are the 
sepulchres of the fame of those who once arrayed 
them with the beauty which has faded, will you believe 
me insensible to the vital, the almost breathing crea- 
tions of genius yet subsisting in their perfection? 
What has become, you will ask, of the Apollo, the 
Gladiator, the Venus of the Capitol ? What of the 
Apollo di Belvedere, the Laocoon? What of Raf- 
faelle and Guido ? These things are best spoken of 
when the mind has drunk in the spirit of their forms ; 
and little indeed can I, who must devote no more 
than a few months to the contemplation of them, 
hope to know or feel of their profound beauty. 



10 2 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I think I told you of the Coliseum, and its impres- 
sions on me on my first visit to this city. The next 
most considerable relic of antiquity, considered as a 
ruin, is the Thermae of Caracalla. These consist of 
six enormous chambers, above two hundred feet in 
height, and each enclosing a vast space like that of 
a field. There are, in addition, a number of towers 
and labyrinthine recesses, hidden and woven over 
by the wild growth of weeds and ivy. Never was 
any desolation more sublime and lovely. The per- 
pendicular wall of ruin is cloven into steep ravines 
filled up with flowering shrubs, whose thick twisted 
roots are knotted in the rifts of the stones. At every 
step the aerial pinnacles of shattered stone group 
into new combinations of effect, and tower above 
the lofty yet level walls, as the distant mountains 
change their aspect to one travelling rapidly along the 
plain. The perpendicular walls resemble nothing more 
than that cliff of Bisham wood, that is overgrown 
with wood, and yet is stony and precipitous, — you 
know the one I mean ; not the chalk-pit, but the 
spot that has the pretty copse of fir trees and privet 
bushes at its base, and where H and I scram- 
bled up, and you, to my infinite discontent, would 
go home. These walls surround green and level 
spaces of lawn, on which some elms have grown, and 
which are interspersed towards their skirts by masses 
of the fallen ruin, overtwined with the broad leaves 
of the creeping weeds. The blue sky canopies it, 
and is as the everlasting roof of these enormous 
halls. 

But the most interesting effect remains. In one 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 183 

of the buttresses, that supports an immense and lofty 
arch, " which bridges the very winds of heaven," are 
the crumbling remains of an antique winding stair- 
case, whose sides are open in many places to the 
precipice. This you ascend, and arrive on the sum- 
mit of these piles. There grow on every side thick 
entangled wildernesses of myrtle, and the myrletus, 
and bay, and the flowering laurestinus, whose white 
blossoms are just developed, the white fig, and a 
thousand nameless plants sown by the wandering 
winds. These woods are intersected on every side 
by paths, like sheep-tracks through the copsewood 
of steep mountains, which wind to every part of the 
immense labyrinth. From the midst rise those pin- 
nacles and masses, themselves like mountains, which 
have been seen from below. In one place you wind 
along a narrow strip of weed-grown ruin : on one 
side is the immensity of earth and sky, on the other 
a narrow chasm, which is bounded by an arch of 
enormous size, fringed by the many-colored foliage 
and blossoms, and supporting a lofty and irregular 
pyramid, overgrown like itself with the all-prevailing 
vegetation. Around rise other crags and other peaks, 
all arrayed, and the deformity of their vast desolation 
softened down, by the undecaying investiture of 
nature. Come to Rome. It is a scene by which 
expression is overpowered, — which words cannot 
convey. Still further, winding up one half of the 
shattered pyramids, by the path through the bloom- 
ing copsewood, you come to a little mossy lawn, 
surrounded by the wild shrubs ; it is overgrown with 
anemones, wall-flowers, and violets, whose stalks 



1 84 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

pierce the starry moss, and with radiant blue flowers, 
whose names I know not, and which scatter through 
the air the divinest odor, which, as you recline under 
the shade of the ruin, produces sensations of voluptu- 
ous faintness, like the combinations of sweet music. 
The paths still wind on, threading the perplexed 
windings, other labyrinths, other lawns, and deep 
dells of wood, and lofty rocks, and terrific chasms. 
When I tell you that these ruins cover several acres, 
and that the paths above penetrate at least half their 
extent, your imagination will fill up all that I am 
unable to express of this astonishing scene. 

I speak of these things, not in the order in which I 
visited them, but in that of the impression which they 
made on me, or perhaps chance directs. The ruins 
of the ancient Forum are so far fortunate that they 
have not been walled up in the modern city. They 
stand in an open, lonesome place, bounded on one 
side by the modern city, and the other by the Pala- 
tine Mount, covered with shapeless masses of ruin. 
The tourists tell you all about these things, and I am 
afraid of stumbling on their language when I enu- 
merate what is so well known. There remain eight 
granite columns of the Ionic order, with their entab- 
lature, of the temple of Concord, founded by Camil- 
lus. I fear that the immense expanse demanded by 
these columns forbids us to hope that they are the 
remains of any edifice dedicated by that most perfect 
and virtuous of men. It is supposed to have been 
repaired under the Eastern Emperors ; alas, what a 
contrast of recollections ! Near them stand those 
Corinthian fluted columns, which supported the 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 185 

angle of a temple ; the architrave and entablature 
are worked with delicate sculpture. Beyond, to the 
south, is another solitary column; and still more 
distant, three more/ supporting the wreck of an 
entablature. Descending from the Capitol to the 
Forum, is the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, 
less perfect than that of Constantine, though from 
its proportions and magnitude a most impressive 
monument. That of Constantine, or rather of Titus, 
(for the relief and sculpture, and even the colossal 
images of Dacian captives, were torn by a decree of 
the Senate from an arch dedicated to the latter, to 
adorn that of this stupid and wicked monster, Con- 
stantine, one of whose chief merits consists in estab- 
lishing a religion the destroyer of those arts which 
would have rendered so base a spoliation unnecessary,) 
is the most perfect. It is an admirable work of art. 
It is built of the finest marble, and the outline of the 
reliefs is in many parts as perfect as if just finished. 
Four Corinthian fluted columns support, on each 
side, a bold entablature, whose bases are loaded 
with reliefs of captives in every attitude of humilia- 
tion and slavery. The compartments above express, 
in bolder relief, the enjoyment of success, — the con- 
queror on his throne, or in his chariot, or nodding 
over the crushed multitudes, who writhe under his 
horses' hoofs ; as those below express the torture and 
abjectness of defeat. There are three arches, whose 
roofs are panelled with fretwork, and their sides 
adorned with similar reliefs. The keystone of these 
arches is supported each by two winged figures of 
Victory, whose hair floats on the wind of their own 



1 86 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

speed, and whose arms are outstretched, bearing 
trophies, as if impatient to meet. They look, as it 
were, borne from the subject extremities of the earth, 
on the breath which is the exhalation of that battle 
and desolation which it is their mission to commemo- 
rate. Never were monuments so completely fitted 
to the purpose for which they were designed, of 
expressing that mixture of energy and error which is 
called a triumph. 

I walk forth in the purple and golden light of an 
Italian evening, and return by star or moonlight, 
through this scene. The elms are just budding, and 
the warm spring winds bring unknown odors, all sweet 
from the country. I see the radiant Orion through 
the mighty columns of the temple of Concord, and 
the mellow fading light softens down the modern 
buildings of the Capitol, the only ones that interfere 
with the sublime desolation of the scene. On the 
steps of the Capitol itself stand two colossal statues 
of Castor and Pollux, each with his horse, finely ex- 
ecuted, though far inferior to those of Monte Ca- 
vallo, the cast of one of which you know we saw 
together in London. This walk is close to our 
lodging, and this is my evening walk. 

What shall I say of the modern city ? Rome is yet 
the capital of the world. It is a city of palaces and 
temples, more glorious than those which any other 
city contains, and of ruins more glorious than they. 
Seen from any of the eminences that surround it, it 
exhibits domes beyond domes, and palaces, and col- 
onnades, interminably, even to the horizon ; inter- 
spersed with patches of desert, and mighty ruins which 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 187 

stand girt by their own desolation, in the midst of the 
fanes of living religions and the habitations of living 
men, in sublime loneliness. 

The effect of the Pantheon is totally the reverse of 
that of St. Peter's. Though not a fourth part of the 
size, it is, as it were, the visible image of the universe ; 
in the perfection of its proportions, as when you regard 
the unmeasured dome of heaven, the idea of magni- 
tude is swallowed up and lost. It is open to the sky, 
and its wide dome is lighted by the ever-changing 
illumination of the air. The clouds of noon fly over 
it, and at night the keen stars are seen through the 
azure darkness, hanging immovably, or driving after 
the driving moon among the clouds. We visited it 
by moonlight ; it is supported by sixteen columns, 
fluted and Corinthian, of a certain rare and beautiful 
yellow marble, exquisitely polished, called here giallo 
antico. Above these are the niches for the statues of 
the twelve gods. This is the only defect of this 
sublime temple ; there ought to have been no inter- 
val between the commencement of the dome and 
the cornice, supported by the columns. Thus' there 
would have been no diversion from the magnificent 
simplicity of its form. This improvement is alone 
wanting to have completed the unity of the idea. 

The fountains of Rome are, in themselves, mag- 
nificent combinations of art, such as alone it were 
worth coming to see. That in the Piazza Navona, a 
large square, is composed of enormous fragments of 
rock, piled on each other, and penetrated as by cav- 
erns. This mass supports an Egyptian obelisk of im- 



1 88 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

mense height. On the four corners of the rock recline, 
in different attitudes, colossal figures representing the 
four divisions of the globe. The water bursts from 
the crevices beneath them. They are sculptured with 
great spirit ; one impatiently tearing a veil from his 
eyes; another with his hands stretched upwards. 
The Fontana di Trevi is the most celebrated, and is 
rather a waterfall than a fountain, gushing out from 
masses of rock, with a gigantic figure of Neptune ; 
and below are two river gods, checking two winged 
horses, struggling up from among the rocks and wa- 
ters. The whole is not ill conceived nor executed ; 
but you know not how delicate the imagination be- 
comes by dieting with antiquity day after day ! The 
only things that sustain the comparison are Raffaelle, 
Guido, and Salvator Rosa. 

The fountain on the Quirinal, or rather the group 
formed by the statues, obelisk, and the fountain, is, 
however, the most admirable of all. From the Piazza 
Quirinale, or rather Monte Cavallo, you see the 
boundless ocean of domes, spires, and columns, 
which is the city, Rome. On a pedestal of white 
marble rises an obelisk of red granite, piercing the 
blue sky. Before it is a vast basin of porphyry, in 
the midst of which rises a column of the purest water, 
which collects into itself all the overhanging colors of 
the sky, and breaks them into a thousand prismatic 
hues and graduated shadows ; they fall together with 
its dashing water-drops into the outer basin. The 
elevated situation of this fountain produces, I imagine, 
this effect of color. On each side, on an elevated 
pedestal, stand the statues of Castor and Pollux, each 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 189 

in the act of taming his horse ; which are said, but I 
believe wholly without authority, to be the work of 
Phidias and Praxiteles. These figures combine the irre- 
sistible energy with the sublime and perfect loveliness 
supposed to have belonged to their divine nature. 
The reins no longer exist, but the position of their 
hands, and the sustained and calm command of their 
regard, seem to require no mechanical aid to enforce 
obedience. The countenances at so great a height 
are scarcely visible, and I have a better idea of that 
of which we saw a cast together in London than of 
the other. But the sublime and living majesty of 
their limbs and mien, the nervous and fiery animation 
of the horses they restrain, seen in the blue sky of 
Italy, and overlooking the city of Rome, surrounded 
by the light and the music of that crystalline fountain, 
no cast can communicate. 

These figures were found at the Baths of Constan- 
tine, but, of course, are of remote antiquity. I do 
not acquiesce, however, in the practice of attributing 
to Phidias, or Praxiteles, or Scopas, or some great 
master, any admirable work that may be found.' We 
find little of what remained, and perhaps the works of 
these were such as greatly surpassed all that we con- 
ceive of most perfect and admirable in what little has 
escaped the deluge. If I am too jealous of the honor 
of the Greeks, our masters and creators, the gods 
whom we should worship, pardon me. 



190 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

XLVIII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Rome, April 6, 1819. 
My dear P., — I sent you yesterday a long letter, 
all about antique Rome, which you had better keep 
for some leisure day. I received yours, and one of 

Hunt's, yesterday. — So you know the B s ? I 

could not help considering Mrs. B., when I knew 
her, as the most admirable specimen of a human 
being I had ever seen. Nothing earthly ever ap- 
peared to be more perfect than her character and 
manners. It is improbable that I shall ever meet 
again the person whom I so much esteemed, and still 
admire. I wish, however, that when you see her 
you would tell her that I have not forgotten her, nor 
any of the amiable circle once assembled round her ; 
and that I desire such remembrances to her as an 
exile and a Pariah may be permitted to address to 
an acknowledged member of the community of man- 
kind. I hear they dined at your lodgings. But no 

mention of A and his wife, — where were they ? 

C , though so young when I saw her, gave indica- 
tions of her mother's excellences, and, certainly less 
fascinating, is, I doubt not, equally amiable, and more 
sincere. It was hardly possible for a person of the 
extreme subtlety and delicacy of Mrs. B 's un- 
derstanding and affections, to be quite sincere and 
constant. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 191 

When shall I return to England? The Pythia has 
ascended the tripod, but she replies not. Our pres- 
ent plans — and I know not what can induce us to 
alter them — lead us back to Naples in a month or 
six weeks, where it is almost decided that we should 
remain until the commencement of 1820. You may 
imagine, when we receive such letters as yours and 
Hunt's, what this resolution costs us, but these are not 
our only communications from England. My health 
is materially better ; my spirits, not the most brilliant 
in the world ; but that we attribute to our solitary 
situation, and, though happy, how should I be lively? 
We see something of Italian society indeed. The 
Romans please me much, especially the women, who, 
though totally devoid of every kind of information, or 
culture of the imagination, or affections, or under- 
standing — and in this respect a kind of gentle savages 

— yet contrive to be interesting. Their extreme in- 
nocence and naivete, the freedom and gentleness of 
their manners ; the total absence of affectation, makes 
an intercourse with them very like an intercourse with 
uncorrupted children, whom they resemble in love- 
liness as well as simplicity. I have seen two women 
in society here of the highest beauty ; their brows and 
lips, and the moulding of the face, modelled with 
sculptural exactness, and the dark luxuriance of their 
hair floating over their fine complexions ; and the lips, 

— you must hear the commonplaces which escape 
from them before they cease to be dangerous. The 
only inferior part are the eyes, which, though good 
and gentle, want the mazy depth of color behind 
color, with which the intellectual women of England 



192 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and Germany entangle the heart in soul-inwoven lab- 
yrinths. 

This is holy week, and Rome is quite full. The 
Emperor of Austria is here, and Maria Louisa is 
coming. On their journey through the other cities of 
Italy, she was greeted with loud acclamations, and 
vivas of Napoleon. Idiots and slaves ! Like the 
frogs in the fable, because they are discontented with 
the log, they call upon the stork, who devours them. 
Great festas, and magnificent funzioni here, — we can- 
not get tickets to all. There are five thousand stran- 
gers in Rome, and only room for five hundred at the 
celebration of the famous Miserere in the Sixtine 
Chapel, the only thing I regret we shall not be pres- 
ent at. xAfter all, Rome is eternal ; and were all that 
is extinguished, that which has been, the ruins and 
the sculptures, would remain, and Raffaelle and Guido 
be alone regretted. 

In the Square of St. Peter's there are about three 
hundred fettered criminals at work, hoeing out the 
weeds that grow between the stones of the pavement. 
Their legs are heavily ironed, and some are chained 
two by two. They sit in long rows, hoeing out the 
weeds, dressed in parti-colored clothes. Near them 
sit or saunter groups of soldiers, armed with loaded 
muskets. The iron discord of those innumerable 
chains clanks up into the sonorous air, and produces, 
contrasted with the musical dashing of the fountains, 
and the deep azure beauty of the sky, and the mag- 
nificence of the architecture around, a conflict of 
sensations allied to madness. It is the emblem of 
Italy, — moral degradation contrasted with the glory 
of nature and the arts. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 193 

We see no English society here ; it is not probable 
that we would if we desired it, and I am certain that 
we should find it unsupportable. The manners of 
the rich English are wholly unsupportable, and they 
assume pretensions which they would not venture 
upon in their own country. I am yet ignorant of 
the event of Hobhouse's election. I saw the last 
numbers were, Lamb 4,200, and Hobhouse 3,900, 
14th day. There is little hope. That mischievous 
Cobbett has divided and weakened the interests of 
the popular party, so that the factions that prey upon 
our country have been able to coalesce to its exclu- 
sion. The N s you have not seen. I am curi- 
ous to know what kind of a girl Octavia becomes ; 

she promised well. Tell H his Melpomene is 

in the Vatican, and that her attitude and drapery 
surpass, if possible, the graces of her countenance. 

My u Prometheus Unbound " is just finished, and 
in a month or two I shall send it. It is a drama, 
with characters and mechanism of a kind yet unat- 
tempted \ and I think the execution is better than 
any of my former attempts. By the by, haye you 
seen Oilier? I never hear from him, and am igno- 
rant whether some verses I sent him from Naples, 
entitled, I think, " Lines on the Euganean Hills," 
have reached him in safety or not. As to the Re- 
views, I suppose there is nothing but abuse, and this 
is not hearty or sincere enough to amuse me. As 
to the poem now printing, 1 I lay no stress on it 
one way or the other. The concluding lines are 
natural. 

1 " Rosalind and Helen." 
13 



194 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I believe, my dear P., that you wish us to come 
back to England. How is it possible? Health, 
competence, tranquillity, — all these Italy permits, 
and England takes away. I am regarded by all who 
know or hear of me, except, I think, on the whole, 
five individuals, as a rare prodigy of crime and pol- 
lution, whose look even might infect. This is a large 
computation, and I don't think I could mention more 
than three. Such is the spirit of the English abroad 
as well as at home. 

Few compensate, indeed, for all the rest, and if I 
were alone I should laugh ; or if I were rich enough 
to do all things, which I shall never be. Pity me for 
my absence from those social enjoyments which Eng- 
land might afford me, and which I know so well how 
to appreciate. Still I shall return some fine morning 
out of pure weakness of heart. 



XLIX. 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE. 
(Leghorn.) 

Rome, April 6, 1819. 

My dear Friends, — A combination of circum- 
stances, which Mary will explain to you, leads us 
back to Naples in June, or rather the end of May, 
where we shall remain until the ensuing winter. We 
shall take a house at Portici or Castel a Mare, until 
late in the autumn. 

The object of this letter is to ask you to spend 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 195 

this period with us. There is no society which we 
have regretted or desired so much as yours, and in 
our solitude the benefit of your concession would be 
greater than I can express. What is a sail to Na- 
ples ? It is the season of tranquil weather and pros- 
perous winds. If I knew the magic that lay in any 
given form of words, I would employ them to per- 
suade ; but I fear that all I can say is, as you know 
with truth, we desire that you would come, — we 
wish to see you. You came to see Mary at Lucca, 
directly I had departed to Venice. It is not our 
custom, when we can help it, any more than it is 
yours, to divide our pleasures. 

What shall I say to entice you? We shall have a 
piano, and some books, and — little else, besides 
ourselves. But what will be most inviting to you, 
you will give much, though you may receive but 
little pleasure. 

But whilst I write this with more desire than hope, 
yet some of that, perhaps the project may fall into 
your designs. It is intolerable to think of your being 
buried at Livorno. The success assured by Mr. 
Reveley's talents requires another scene. You may 
have decided to take this summer to consider, — and 
why not with us at Naples, rather than at Livorno ? 

I could address with respect to Naples, the words 
of Polypheme in Theocritus, to all the friends I wish 
to see, and you especially : 

'E^evdois, TaXoireia, kcu QevOolcrcL \ddoio, 
"CLcnrep iycb vvv <w5e Kad'fj/j.EVOs, oj7ta5' aTrevOelvl 

1 Come, O Galatea, and having come, forget, as do I, now 
sitting here, to return home. — M. S. 



196 THE BEST LETTERS OF 



L. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

~LlVORNO,fune 20, l8 19. 

My dear Peacock, — Our melancholy journey 
finishes at this town, but we retrace our steps to 
Florence, where, as I imagine, we shall remain some 
months. 1 O that I could return to England ! How 
heavy a weight when misfortune is added to exile, 
and solitude, as if the measure were not full, heaped 
high on both. O that I could return to England ! I 
hear you say, " Desire never fails to generate capaci- 
ty.' ' Ah ! but that ever-present Malthus, Necessity, 
has convinced Desire that, even though it generated 
capacity, its offspring must starve. Enough of mel- 
ancholy ! " Nightmare Abbey, " though no cure, is 
a palliative. I have just received the parcel which 
contained it, and at the same time the Examiners, 
by the way of Malta. I am delighted with " Night- 
mare Abbey." I think Scythrop a character admi- 
rably conceived and executed ; and I know not how 
to praise sufficiently the lightness, chastity, and 
strength of the language of the whole. 2 It perhaps 

1 On June 7th, Shelley's child, William, died at Rome. 
He immediately left Rome for Livorno, a change being ne- 
cessary to his wife's health and spirits. They remained at 
Livorno four months. 

2 In portraying the character of Scythrop, Peacock seized 
on several of the traits in Shelley's character. See Mrs. 
Shelley's notes to Poems of 181 7. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 197 

exceeds all your works in this. The catastrophe is 
excellent I suppose the moral is contained in what 
FalstafT says, " For God's sake, talk like a man of this 
world " ; and yet, looking deeper into it, is not the 
misdirected enthusiasm of Scythrop what J. C. calls 
the " salt of the earth " ? My friends the Gisbornes 
here admire and delight in it exceedingly. I think 
I told you that they (especially the lady) are people 
of high cultivation. She is a woman of profound 
accomplishments and the most refined taste. 

Cobbett still more and more delights me, with all 
my horror of the sanguinary commonplaces of his 
creed. His design to overthrow bank-notes by for- 
gery is very comic. One of the volumes of Birbeck 
interested me exceedingly. The letters I think stu- 
pid, but suppose that they are useful. 

I do not, as usual, give you an account of my 
journey, for I had neither the health nor the spirit to 
take notes. My health was greatly improving, when 
watching and anxiety cast me into a relapse. The 
doctors (I put little faith in the best) tell me I must 
spend the winter in Africa or Spain. I shall of 'Course 
prefer the latter, if I choose either. 

Are you married, or why do I not hear from you ? 
That were a good reason. 

When shall I see you again? 



198 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

LL 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

LlVORNO, July 6, 18 19. 

My dear Peacock, — I have lost some letters, 
and, in all probability, at least one from you, as I 
can account in no other manner for not having heard 
from you since March 26th. We have changed our 
design of going to Florence immediately, and are 
now established for three months in a little country 
house in a pretty verdant scene near Livorno. 

I have a study here in a tower, something like 
Scythrop's, where I am just beginning to recover the 
faculties of reading and writing. My health, when- 
ever no Libecchio blows, improves. From my tower 
I see the sea, with its islands, Gorgona, Capraja, 
Elba, and Corsica, on one side, and the Apennines 
on the other. Milly surprised us the other day by 
first discovering a comet, on which we have been 
speculating. She may " make a stir, like a great 
astronomer. " 

All good wishes, and many hopes that you have 
already that success on which there will be no con- 
gratulations more cordial than those you will receive 
from me. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 199 

LIL 

TO T. L. PEACOCK, 

Livorno, July, 1 8 19. 

My dear P., — We still remain, and shall remain 
nearly two months longer, at Livorno. Our house is 
a melancholy one, and only cheered by letters from 
England. I got your note, in which you speak of 
three letters having been sent to Naples, which I 

have written for. I have heard also from H , 

who confirms the news of your success, an intelli- 
gence most grateful to me. 

The object of the present letter is to ask a favor of 
you. I have written a tragedy, on the subject of a 
story w r ell known in Italy, and, in my conception, 
eminently dramatic. I have taken some pains to 
make my play fit for representation, and those who 
have already seen it judge favorably. It is written 
without any of the peculiar feelings and opinions 
which characterize my other compositions ; I having 
attended simply to the impartial development of such 
characters as it is probable the persons represented 
really were, together with the greatest degree of 
popular effect to be produced by such a develop- 
ment. I send you a translation of the Italian manu- 
script on which my play is founded, the chief subject 
of which I have touched very delicately ; for my 
principal doubt, as to whether it would succeed as 
an acting play, hangs entirely on the question as to 



200 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

whether such a thing as incest in this shape, how- 
ever treated, would be admitted on the stage. I 
think, however, it will form no objection : consider- 
ing, first, that the facts are matter of history ; and, 
secondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have 
treated it. 1 

I am exceedingly interested in the question of 
whether this attempt of mine will succeed or no. I 
am strongly inclined to the affirmative at present, 
founding my hopes on this, that, as a composition, it 
is certainly not inferior to any of the modern plays 
that have been acted, with the exception of " Re- 
morse " ; that the interest of its plot is incredibly 
greater and more real; and that there is nothing 
beyond what the multitude are contented to believe 
that they can understand, either in imagery, opinion, 
or sentiment. I wish to preserve a complete incog- 
nito, and can trust to you that, whatever else you do, 
you will at least favor me on this point. Indeed this 
is essential, deeply essential to its success. After it 
had been acted, and successfully (could I hope such 
a thing), I would own it if I pleased, and use the 
celebrity it might acquire to my own purposes. 

What I want you to do is to procure for me its 
presentation at Covent Garden. The principal char- 
acter, Beatrice, is precisely fitted for Miss O'Neil, 
and it might even seem written for her, (God forbid 
that I should ever see her play it, it would tear my 

1 The tragedy referred to was " The Cenci," which Shelley 
first desired his wife to undertake. The materials for it he 
secured at Rome. It was rejected by Harris, the manager of 
Covent Garden, the subject being objectionable. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 20 1 

nerves to pieces,) and, in all respects, it is fitted 
only for Covent Garden. The chief male character, 
I confess, I should be very unwilling that any one 
but Kean should play ; — that is impossible, and I 
must be contented with an inferior actor. I think 
you know some of the people of that theatre, or, at 
least, some one who knows them ; and when you 
have read the play, you may say enough, perhaps, to 
induce them not to reject it without consideration ; 
but of this, perhaps, I may judge from the trage- 
dies which they have accepted, there is no danger 
at any rate. 

Write to me as soon as you can on this subject, 
because it is necessary that I should present it, or, if 
rejected by the theatre, print it this coming season, 
lest somebody else should get hold of it, as the story, 
which now only exists in manuscript, begins to be 
generally known among the English. The transla- 
tion which I send you is to be prefixed to the play, 
together with a print of Beatrice. I have a copy of 
her picture by Guido, now in the Colonna palace 
at Rome, — the most beautiful creature ypu can 
conceive. 

Of course, you will not show the manuscript to any 
one ; and write to me by return of post, at which 
time the play will be ready to be sent. 

I expect soon to write again, and it shall be a less 
selfish letter. As to Oilier, I don't know what has 
been published, or what has arrived at his hands. — 
My " Prometheus/' though ready, I do not send till 
I know more. 



202 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

LIIL 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Livorno, August 15, 1819, 
My dear Friend, — How good of you to write to 
us so often, and such kind letters ! But it is like 
lending to a beggar. What can I offer in return. 

Though surrounded by suffering and disquietude, 
and, latterly, almost overcome by our strange mis- 
fortune, 1 I have not been idle. My " Prometheus " 
is finished, and I am also on the eve of completing 
another work, 2 totally different from anything you 
might consider that I should write ; of a more pop- 
ular kind; and if anything of mine could deserve 
attention, of higher claims. " Be innocent of the 
knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou approve the 
performance." 

I send you a little poem 3 to give to Oilier for 
publication, but without my name. P. will correct 
the proofs. I wrote it with the idea of offering it to 
the " Examiner," but I find it is too long. It was 
composed last year at Este ; two of the characters 
you will recognize ; and the third is also in some 
degree a painting from nature, but, with respect to 
time and place, ideal. You will find the little piece, 

1 The sudden death of William Shelley, then our only 
child, which happened in Rome, 6th June, 1819. — M. S. 

2 " The Cenci." 

3 u Julian and Maddalo." 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 203 

I think, in some degree consistent with your own 
ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be 
written. I have employed a certain familiar style of 
language to express the actual way in which people 
talk with each other, whom education and a certain 
refinement of sentiment have placed above the use 
of vulgar idioms. I use the word vulgar in its most 
extensive sense. The vulgarity of rank and fashion 
is as gross in its way as that of poverty, and its cant 
terms equally expressive of bare conceptions, and 
therefore equally unfit for poetry, Not that the 
familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of 
a subject wholly ideal, or in that part of any subject 
which relates to common life, where the passion, 
exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundaries of 
that which is ideal. Strong passion expresses itself 
in metaphor, borrowed from objects alike remote or 
near, and casts over all the shadow of its own great- 
ness. But what am I about? If my grandmother 
sucks eggs, was it I who taught her? 

If you would really correct the proof, I need not 
trouble P., who, I suppose, has enough. ,Can you 
take it as a compliment that I prefer to trouble 
you? 

I do not particularly wish this poem to be known 
as mine ; but, at all events, I would not put my name 
to it. I leave you to judge whether it is best to 
throw it into the fire, or to publish it. So much for 
self, — self, that burr that will stick to one. Your kind 
expressions about my Eclogue gave me great pleas- 
ure ; indeed, my great stimulus in writing is to have 
the approbation of those who feel kindly towards me. 



204 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

The rest is mere duty. I am also delighted to hear 
that you think of us and form fancies about us. We 
cannot yet come home. 



LIV. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Livorno, August [probably 22], 1819. 

My dear Peacock, — I ought first to say, that I 
have not yet received one of your letters from Na- 
ples ; but your present letter tells me all that I could 
desire to hear. 

My employments are these : I awaken usually at 
seven ; read half an hour ; then get up ; breakfast ; 
after breakfast ascend my tower, and read or write 
until two. Then we dine. After dinner I read Dante 
with Mary, gossip a little, eat grapes and figs, some- 
times walk, though seldom, and at half past five pay 
a visit to Mrs. Gisborne, who reads Spanish with me 
until near seven. We then come for Mary, and stroll 
about till supper time. Mrs. Gisborne is a suffi- 
ciently amiable and very accomplished woman ; she is 
drjfjLOKpaTiKrj and aOlrj, — how far she may be <j>L\av6pl7rrj 
I don't know, for she is the antipodes of enthusiasm. 
Her husband, a man with little thin lips, receding 
forehead, and a prodigious nose, is an [ ] bore. 
His nose is something quite Slawkenbergian, — it 
weighs on the imagination to look at it. It is that 
sort of nose which transforms all the g's its wearer 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 205 

utters into k's. It is a nose once seen never to be 
forgotten, and which requires the utmost stretch of 
Christian charity to forgive. I, you know, have a 
little turn-up nose ; Hogg has a large hook one ; but 
add them both together, square them, cube them, 
you will have but a faint idea of the nose to which I 
refer. 

I most devoutly wish I were living near London. 
I do not think I shall settle so far off as Richmond ; 
and to inhabit any intermediate spot on the Thames 
would be to expose myself to the river damps ; not 
to mention that it is not much to my taste. My in- 
clinations point to Hampstead ; but I do not know 
whether I should not make up my mind to something 
more completely suburban. What are mountains, 
trees, heaths, or even the glorious and ever beautiful 
sky, with such sunsets as I have seen at Hampstead, 
to friends? Social enjoyment, in some form or 
other, is the alpha and the omega of existence. All 
that I see in Italy — and from my tower window I 
now see the magnificent peaks of the Apennine half 
enclosing the plain — is nothing ; it dwindles into 
smoke in the mind, when I think of some familiar 
forms of scenery, little perhaps in themselves, over 
which old remembrances have thrown a delightful 
color. How we prize what we despised when pres- 
ent ! The ghosts of our dead associations rise and 
haunt us, in revenge for our having let them starve, 
and abandoned them to perish. 

One thing, I own, I am curious about ; and in the 
chance of the letters not coming from Naples, pray 



206 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

tell me. What is it you do at the India House? 
Hunt writes, and says you have got a situation in 
the India House ; Hogg, that you have an honorable 
employment ; Godwin writes to Mary that you have 
got so much or so much, but nothing of what you do. 
The devil take these general terms. Not content 
with having driven all poetry out of the world, at 
length they make war on their own allies; nay, on 
their very parents, dry facts. If it had not been the 
age of generalities, any one of these people would 
have told me what you did. 

I have been much better these last three weeks. 
My work on the Cenci, which was done in two 
months, was a fine antidote to nervous medicines, 
and kept up, I think, the pain in my side, as sticks 
do a fire. Since then, I have materially improved. 
I do not walk enough. C, who is sometimes my 
companion, does not dress in exactly the right time. 
I have no stimulus to walk. Now, I go sometimes 
to Livorno on business ; and that does me good. 

England seems to be in a very disturbed state, if 
we may judge from some Paris papers. I suspect it 
is rather exaggerated. But the change should com- 
mence among the higher orders, or anarchy will only 
be the last flash before despotism. 

I have been reading Calderon in Spanish. A kind 
of Shakespeare is this Calderon; and I have some 
thoughts, if I find that I cannot do anything better, 
of translating some of his plays. 

The Examiners I receive. Hunt, as a political 
writer, pleases me more and more. Adieu. M. and 
C. send their best remembrances. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 207 

Pray send me some books, and Claire would take 
it as a great favor if you would send her music 
books. 



LV. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Livorno, September 3, 18 19. 

My dear Friend, — At length has arrived Ollier's 
parcel, and with it the portrait. What a delightful 
present ! It is almost yourself, and we sat talking 
with it, and of it, all the evening. It is a great pleas- 
ure to us to possess it, a pleasure in time of need, 
coming to us when there are few others. How we 
wish it were you, and not your picture ! How I 
wish we were with you ! 

This parcel, you know, and all its letters, are now 
a year old, — some older. There are all kinds of 
dates, from March to August, and " your date," to use 
Shakespeare's expression, " is better in a pie or a 
pudding than in your letter." — " Virginity," Parolles 
says, but letters are the same thing in another shape. 

With it came, too, Lamb's works. I have looked 
at none of the other books yet. What a lovely thing 
is his " Rosamund Gray " ! How much knowledge 
of the sweetest and deepest parts of our nature in it ! 

When I think of such a mind as Lamb's, — when 
I see how unnoticed remain things of such exquisite 
and complete perfection, — what should I hope for 
myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame? 



208 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I have seen too little of Italy, and of pictures. 
Perhaps P. has shown you some of my letters to him. 
But at Rome I was very ill, seldom able to go out 
without a carriage ; and though I kept horses for two 
months there, yet there is so much to see ! Perhaps 
I attended more to sculpture than painting, its forms 
being more easily intelligible than that of the latter. 
Yet I saw the famous works of Raffaelle, whom I 
agree with the whole world in thinking the finest 
painter. Why, I can tell you another time. With 
respect to Michael Angelo I dissent, and think with 
astonishment and indignation of the common notion 
that he equals, and in some respects exceeds Raffaelle. 
He seems to me to have no sense of moral dignity 
and loveliness ; and the energy for which he has been 
so much praised appears to me to be a certain rude, 
external, mechanical quality, in comparison with any- 
thing possessed by Raffaelle, or even much inferior 
artists. His famous painting in the Sixtine Chapel 
seems to me deficient in beauty and majesty, both in 
the conception and the execution. He has been 
called the Dante of painting ; but if we find some of 
the gross and strong outlines which are employed in 
the most distasteful passages of the " Inferno," where 
shall we find your Francesca, — where the spirit 
coming over the sea in a boat, like Mars rising from 
the vapors of the horizon, — where Matilda gathering 
flowers, and all the exquisite tenderness, and sensi- 
bility, and ideal beauty^ in which Dante excelled all 
poets except Shakespeare? 

As to Michael Angelo's Moses, — but you have a 
cast of that in England. I write these things, Heaven 
knows why ! 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 209 

I have written something and finished it, different 
from anything else, and a new attempt for me ; and I 
mean to dedicate it to you. 1 I should not have done 
so without your approbation, but I asked your pic- 
ture last night, and it smiled assent. If I did not 
think it in some degree worthy of you, I would not 
make you a public offering of it. I expect to have 
to write to you soon about it. If Oilier is not turned 
Jew, Christian, or become infected with the murrain, 
he will publish it. Don't let him be frightened, for 
it is nothing which, by any courtesy of language, can 
be termed either moral or immoral. 

Mary has written to Marianne for a parcel, in 
which I beg you will make Oilier enclose what you 
know would most interest me, — your " Calendar " 
(a sweet extract from which I saw in the Examiner), 
and the other poems belonging to you ; and, for 
some friends of mine, my Eclogue. 



LVI. 

TO C. OLLIER. 



Leghorn, September 6, 1819. 
Dear Sir, — I received your packet with Hunt's 
picture about a fortnight ago ; and your letter with 
Nos. 1, 2, and 3 yesterday, but not No. 4, which is 



"TheCenci." 
14 



210 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

probably lost or mislaid, through the extreme irregu- 
larity of the Italian post. 

The ill account you give of the success of my poeti- 
cal attempts sufficiently accounts for your silence ; 
but I believe that the truth is, I write less for the 
public than for myself. Considering that perhaps 
the parcel will be another year on its voyage, I rather 
wish, if this letter arrives in time, that you would 
send the Quarterly's article by the post, and the 
rest of the Review in the parcel. Of course, it 
gives me a certain degree of pleasure to know that 
any one likes my writings ; but it is objection and 
enmity alone that rouses my curiosity. My " Pro- 
metheus," which has been long finished, is now being 
transcribed, and will soon be forwarded to you for 
publication. It is, in my judgment, of a higher 
character than anything I have yet attempted, and 
is perhaps less an imitation of anything that has gone 
before it. I shall also send you another work, cal- 
culated to produce a very popular effect, and totally 
in a different style from anything I have yet com- 
posed. This will be sent already printed. The 
" Prometheus " you will be so good as to print as 
usual. . . . 

In the " Rosalind and Helen," I see there are 
some few errors, which are so much the worse be- 
cause they are errors in the sense. If there should 
be any danger of a second edition, I will correct 
them. 

I have read your "Altham," and Keats's poem, 
and Lamb's works. For the second in this list, 
much praise is due 'to me for having read it, the 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 211 

author's intention appearing to be that no person 
should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of 
some of the highest and the finest gleams of poetry ; 
indeed, everything seems to be viewed by the mind 
of a poet which is described in it. I think, if he 
had printed about fifty pages of fragments from it, 
I should have been led to admire Keats as a poet 
more than I ought, of which there is now no danger. 1 
In " Altham " you have surprised and delighted me. 
It is a natural story, most unaffectedly told; and, 
what is more, told in a strain of very pure and pow- 
erful English, which is a very rare merit. You seem 
to have studied our language to some purpose ; but 
I suppose I ought to have waited for " Inesilla." 

The same day that your letter came, came the 
news of the Manchester work, and the torrent of my 
indignation has not yet done boiling in my veins. 
I wait anxiously to hear how the country will express 
its sense of this bloody, murderous oppression of its 
destroyers. " Something must be done. What, yet 
I know not." 

In your parcel (which I pray you to send in some 
safe manner, forwarding to me the bill of lading, etc., 
in a regular mercantile way, so that my parcel may 
come in six weeks, not twelve months) send me 
Jones's Greek Grammar and some sealing-wax. 

1 Keats's later poems were very much admired by Shelley, 
although he had no praise for " Endymion." Elsewhere he 
says of him : " Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a 
great poet ; like the sun, to burst through the clouds, which, 
though dyed in the finest colors of the air, obscured his 
rising. ,, 



2 12 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

Whenever I publish, send copies of my books to 
the following people from me : — 
Mr. Hunt, Mr. Keats, 

Mr. Godwin, Mr. Thomas Moore, 

Mr. Hogg, Mr. Horace Smith, 

Mr. Peacock, Lord Byron (at Murray's). 



LVII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Livorno, September 9, 181 9. 

My dear Peacock, — I send you the tragedy. 
You will see that the subject has not been treated as 
you suggested, and why it was not susceptible of such 
treatment. In fact, it was then already printing 
when I received your letter, and it has been treated 
in such a manner that I do not see how the subject 
forms an objection. You know " GEdipus " is per- 
formed on the fastidious French stage, a play much 
more broad than this. I confess I have some hopes, 
and some friends here persuade me that they are 
not unfounded. 

Many thanks for your attention in sending the 
papers which contain the terrible and important news 
of Manchester. These are, as it were, the distant 
thunders of the terrible storm which is approaching. 
The tyrants here, as in the French Revolution, have 
first shed blood. May their execrable lessons not be 
learnt with equal facility ! Pray let me have the 
earliest political news which you consider of impor- 
tance at this crisis. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 213 

LVIII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Leghorn, September 21, 1819. 
My dear Peacock, — You will have received a 
short letter sent with the tragedy, and the tragedy 
itself by this time. I am, you may believe, anxious 
to hear what you think of it, and how the manager 
talks about it. I have printed in Italy two hundred 
and fifty copies, because it costs, with all duties and 
freightage, about half what it would cost in London, 
and these copies will be sent by sea. My other rea- 
son was a belief that the seeing it in print would 
enable the people at the theatre to judge more easily. 
Since I last wrote to you Mr. Gisborne is gone to 
England for the purpose of obtaining a situation for 
Henry Reveley. I have given him a letter to you, 
and you would oblige me by showing what civilities 
you can, and by forwarding his views, either by 
advice or recommendation, as you may find oppor- 
tunity. Henry is a most amiable person, and has 
great talents as a mechanic and engineer. Mr. Gis- 
borne is a man who .knows I cannot tell how many 
languages, and has read almost all the books you 
can think of; but all that they contain seems to be 
to his mind what water is to a sieve. His liberal 
opinions are all the reflections of Mrs. G.'s, a very 
amiable, accomplished, and completely unprejudiced 
woman. 



214 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

Charles Clairmont is now with us on his way to 
Vienna. He has spent a year or more in Spain, 
where he has learned Spanish, and I make him read 
Spanish all day long. It is a most powerful and ex- 
pressive language, and I have already learned suffi- 
cient to read with great ease their poet Calderon. I 
have read about twelve of his plays. Some of them 
certainly deserve to be ranked among the grandest 
and most perfect productions of the human mind. 
He exceeds all modern dramatists, with the excep- 
tion of Shakespeare, whom he resembles however in 
the depth of thought and subtlety of imagination of 
his writings, and in the rare power of interweaving 
delicate and powerful comic traits with the most 
tragical situations, without diminishing their interest. 
I rate him far above Beaumont and Fletcher. 

I have sent you my " Prometheus," which I do not 
wish to be sent to Oilier for publication until I write 
to that effect. Mr. Gisborne will bring it, as also 
some volumes of Spenser, and the two last of He- 
rodotus, and " Paradise Lost," which may be put up 
with the others. 

If my play should be accepted, don't you think it 
would excite some interest, and take off the unex- 
pected horror of the story, by showing that the events 
are real, if it could be made to appear in some paper 
in some form? 

You will hear from me again shortly, as I send you 
by sea " The Cenci " printed, which you will be 
good enough to keep. Adieu. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 215 

LIX. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Livorno, September 27, 18 19. 
My dear Friend, — We are now on the point 
of leaving this place for Florence, where we have 
taken pleasant apartments for six months, which 
brings us to the 1 st of April, the season at which new 
flowers and new thoughts spring forth upon the earth 
and in the mind. What is then our destination is yet 
undecided. I have not seen Florence, except as one 
sees the outside of the streets ; but its physiognomy 
indicates it to be a city which, though the ghost of a 
republic, yet possesses most amiable qualities. I wish 
you could meet us there in the spring, and we would 
try to muster up a "lieta brigata," which, leaving 
behind them the pestilence of remembered misfor- 
tunes, might act over again the pleasures of the in- 
terlocutors in Boccaccio. I have been lately reading 
this most divine writer. He is, in a high sense of 
the word, a poet, and his language has the rhythm 
and harmony of verse. I think him not equal cer- 
tainly to Dante or Petrarch, but far superior to Tasso 
and Ariosto, the children of a later and of a colder 
day. I consider the three first as the productions of 
the vigor of the infancy of a new nation, — as rivu- 
lets from the same spring as that which fed the great- 
ness of the republics of Florence and Pisa, and which 
checked the influence of the German Emperors, and 



2l6 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

from which, through obscurer channels, Raffaelle and 
Michael Angelo drew the light and the harmony of 
their inspiration. When the second-rate poets of 
Italy wrote, the corrupting blight of tyranny was al- 
ready hanging on every bud of genius. Energy, and 
simplicity, and unity of idea, were no more. In vain 
do we seek in the finest passages of Ariosto and 
Tasso any expression which at all approaches in 
this respect to those of Dante and Petrarch. How 
much do I admire Boccaccio ! What descriptions 
of nature are those in his little introductions to every 
new day ! It is the morning of life stripped of that 
mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us. 
Boccaccio seems to me to have possessed a deep 
sense of the fair ideal of human life, considered in its 
social relations. His more serious theories of love 
agree especially with mine. He often expresses 
things lightly, too, which have serious meanings of a 
very beautiful kind. He is a moral casuist, the oppo- 
site of the Christian, stoical, ready-made, and worldly 
system of morals. Do you remember one little re- 
mark, or rather maxim of his, which might do some 
good to the common, narrow-minded conceptions of 
love, — " Bocca bacciata non perde ventura ; anzi 
rinnuova, come fa la luna " ? 

It would give me much pleasure to know Mr. 
Lloyd. Do you know, when I was in Cumberland, I 
got Southey to borrow a copy of Berkeley from him, 
and I remember observing some pencil notes in it, 
probably written by Lloyd, which I thought particu- 
larly acute. One, especially, struck me as being the 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 217 

assertion of a doctrine of which even then I had 
long been persuaded, and on which I had founded 
much of my persuasions as regarded the imagined 
cause of the universe, — " Mind cannot create, it 
can only perceive. " Ask him if he remembers hav- 
ing written it. Of Lamb you know my opinion, and 
you can bear witness to the regret which I felt, when 
I learned that the calumny of an enemy had deprived 
me of his society whilst in England. Oilier told me 
that the Quarterly are going to review me. I suppose 
it will be a pretty , and as I am acquiring a 

taste for humor and drollery, I confess I am curious 
to see it. I have sent my " Prometheus Unbound " 
to P. ; if you ask him for it, he will show it you. I 
think it will please you. 

Whilst I went to Florence, Mary wrote, but I did 
not see her letter. Well, good by. Next Monday 
I shall write to vou from Florence. Love to all. 



LX. 

TO MRS. GISBORNE. 

Florence, October 13 or 14, 18 19. 
My dear Friend, — The regret we feel at our 
absence from you persuades me that it is a state 
which cannot last, and which, so long as it must last, 
will be interrupted by some intervals, one of which is 
destined to be your all coming to visit us here. Poor 
Oscar ! I feel a kind of remorse to think of the un- 
equal love with which two animated beings regard 



2l8 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

each other, when I experience no such sensations 
for him as those which he manifested for us. His 
importunate regret is, however, a type of ours as re- 
gards you. Our memory — if you will accept so 
humble a metaphor — is forever scratching at the 
door of your absence. 

I am anxious to hear of Mr. Gisborne's return, and 
I anticipate the surprise and pleasure with which he 
will learn that a resolution has been taken which 
leaves you nothing to regret in that event. It is with 
unspeakable satisfaction that I reflect that my en- 
treaties and persuasions overcame your scruples on 
this point, and that whatever advantage shall accrue 
from it will belong to you, whilst any reproach due to 
the imprudence of such an enterprise must rest on 
me. I shall thus share the pleasure of success, and 
bear the blame and loss (if such a thing were possi- 
ble) of a reverse ; and what more can a man, who is 
a friend to another, desire for himself? Let us be- 
lieve in a kind of optimism, in which we are our own 
gods. It is best that Mr. Gisborne should have re- 
turned ; it is best that I should have over-persuaded 
you and Henry ; it is best that you should all live to- 
gether, without any more solitary attempts ; it is best 
that this one attempt should have been made, other- 
wise, perhaps, one thing which is best might not have 
occurred ; and it is best that we should think all this 
for the best, even though it is not, because Hope, as 
Coleridge says, is a solemn duty, which we owe alike 
to ourselves and to the world, — a worship to the 
spirit of good within, which requires, before it sends 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 219 

that inspiration forth which impresses its likeness 
upon all that it creates, devoted and disinterested 
homage. 

A different scene is this from that in which you 
made the chief character of our changing drama. 

We see no one, as usual. Madame M- is quiet, 

and we only meet her now and then, by chance. 
Her daughter, not so fair, but I fear as cold, as the 
snowy Florimel in Spenser, is in and out of love with 

C as the winds happen to blow ; and C , 

who, at the moment I happen to write, is in a high 
state of transitory contentment, is setting off to Vienna 
in a day or two. 

I have yet seen little of Florence. The gallery 
I have a design of studying piecemeal; one of my 
chief objects in Italy being the observing in statuary 
and painting the degree in which, and the rules ac- 
cording to which, that ideal beauty, of which we have 
so intense yet so obscure an apprehension, is realized 
in external forms. 

I had forgotten to say that I should be very much 
obliged to you, if you would contrive to send " The 
Cenci," which are at the printer's, to England, by the 
next ship. I forgot it in the hurry of departure. — I 
have just heard from P., saying that he don't think 
that my tragedy will do, and that he don't much like 
it. But I ought to say, to blunt the edge of his criti- 
cism, that he is a nursling of the exact and superficial 
school in poetry. 

If Mr. G. is returned, send the "Prometheus" 
with them. 



2 20 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

LXI. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

Florence, October 15, 181 9. 

Dear Sir, — The droll remarks of the Quarterly, 
and Hunt's kind defence, arrived as safe as such 
poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do. 

I am on the point of sending to you two hundred 
and fifty copies of a work which I have printed in 
Italy, which you will have to pay four or five pounds 
duty upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you the 
hind of thing it is, and in the course of the winter I 
shall send directions for its publication, until the 
arrival of which directions I request that you would 
have the kindness not to open the box, or, if by neces- 
sity it is opened, to abstain from observing yourself 
or permitting others to observe, what it contains. I 
trust this confidently to you, it being of consequence. 
Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no 
reference, direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, 
or personal satire, and that this precaution is merely 
literary. 

The " Prometheus," a poem in my best style, 
whatever that may amount to, will arrive with it, but 
in MS., which you can print and publish in the sea- 
son. It is the most perfect of my productions. 

Southey wrote the article in question, I am well 
aware. Observe the impudence of the man in speak- 
ing of himself. The only remark worth notice in 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 221 

this piece is the assertion that I imitate Wordsworth. 
It may as well be said that Lord Byron imitates 
Wordsworth, or that Wordsworth imitates Lord By- 
ron, both being great poets, and deriving from the 
new springs of thought and feeling which the great 
events of our age have exposed to view a similar 
tone of sentiment, imagery, and expression. A cer- 
tain similarity all the best writers of any particular 
age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of 
that age acting on all. This I had explained in my 
Preface, which the writer was too disingenuous to 
advert to. As to the other trash, and particularly 
that lame attack on my personal character, which 
was meant so ill, and which I am not the man to 
feel, 't is all nothing. I am glad, with respect to that 
part of it which alludes to Hunt, that it should so 
have happened that I dedicate, as you will see, a 
work which has all the capacities for being popular 
to that excellent person. I was amused, too, with 
the finale ; it is like the end of the first act of an 
opera, when that tremendous concordant discord 
sets up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and 
sings at once. It describes the result of my battle 
with their Omnipotent God ; his pulling me under 
the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh ; my 
calling out like the devil, who was game to the last, 
swearing and cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, 
like a French postilion on Mont Cenis ; entreating 
everybody to drown themselves ; pretending not to 
be drowned myself when I am drowned ; and, lastly, 
being drowned. 



22 2 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

LXIL 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE. 

Florence, November 6, 1819. 
My dear Friends, — I have just finished a letter 
of fwz sheets on Carlyle's affair, and am in hourly 
expectation of Mary's confinement : you will imagine 
an excuse for my silence. 

How goes on Portuguese, — and Theocritus? I 
have deserted the odorous gardens of literature to 
journey across the great sandy desert of politics; 
not, as you may imagine, without the hope of finding 
some enchanted paradise. In all probability, I shall 
be overwhelmed by one of the tempestuous columns 
which are forever traversing, with the speed of a 
storm, and the confusion of a chaos, that pathless 
wilderness. You meanwhile will be lamenting in 
some happy oasis that I do not return. This is out- 
Calderonizing Muley. We have had lightning and 
rain here in plenty. I like the Cascini very much, 
where I often walk alone, watching the leaves, and 
the rising and falling of the Arno. I am full of all 
kinds of literary plans. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 223 

LXIII. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Florence, November 13, 1819. 

My dear Friend, — Yesterday morning Mary 
brought me a little boy. 1 She suffered but two 
hours' pain, and is now so well that it seems a won- 
der that she stays in bed. The babe is also quite 
well, and has begun to suck. You may imagine that 
this is a great relief and a great comfort to me 
amongst all my misfortunes, past, present, and to 
come. 

Since I last wrote to you, some circumstances have 
occurred, not necessary to explain by letter, which 
make my pecuniary condition a very painful one. 
The physicans absolutely forbid my travelling to 
England in the winter, but I shall probably pay you 
a visit in the spring. With what pleasure, among 
all the other sources of regret and discomfort with 
which England abounds for me, do I think of look- 
ing on the original of that kind and earnest face 
which is now opposite Mary's bed. It will be the 
only thing which Mary will envy me, or will need to 

1 This son was Sir Percy Florence Shelley, who succeeded 
to the baronetcy on the death of Sir Timothy, in 1844. He 
died three years ago, after a long life spent in giving everything 
possible to the world concerning the poet. He furnished the 
materials for nearly every authentic work ever published 
about Shelley. 



224 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

envy me, in that journey, for I shall come alone. 
Shaking hands with you is worth all the trouble ; the 
rest is clear loss. 

I will tell you more about myself and my pursuits 
in my next letter. 

Kind love to Marianne, Bessy, and all the children. 
Poor Mary begins (for the first time) to look a little 
consoled ; for we have spent, as you may imagine, a 
miserable five months. 

Good by, my dear Hunt. 



LXIV. 

TO MRS. GISBORNE. 

Florence, November 16, 1819. 
Madonna, — I have been lately voyaging in a sea 
without my pilot, and although my sail has often 
been torn, my boat become leaky, and the log lost, 
I have yet sailed in a kind of way from island to 
island ; some of craggy and mountainous magnifi- 
cence, some clothed with moss and flowers and 
radiant with fountains, some barren deserts. / have 
been reading Calderon without you. I have read the 
" Cisma de Ingalaterra," the " Cabellos de Absolom," 
and three or four others. These pieces, inferior to 
those we read, at least to the " Principe Constante," 
in the splendor of particular passages, are perhaps 
superior in their satisfying completeness. The 
Cabellos de Absolom is full of the deepest and ten- 
derest touches of nature. Nothing can be more 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 225 

pathetically conceived than the character of old 
David, and the tender and impartial love, overcom- 
ing all insults and all crimes, with which he regards 
his conflicting and disobedient sons. The incest 
scene of Amnon and Tamar is perfectly tremen- 
dous. Well may Calderon say in the person of the 

former : — 

" Si sangre sin fuego hiere, 
que fara sangre con fuego ? " 

Incest is, like many other incorrect things, a very 
poetical circumstance. It may be the excess of love 
or hate. It may be the defiance of everything for 
the sake of another, which clothes itself in the glory 
of the highest heroism ; or it may be that cynical 
rage which, confounding the good and the bad in 
existing opinions, breaks through them for the pur- 
pose of rioting in selfishness and antipathy. Calde- 
ron, following the Jewish historians, has represented 
Amnon's action in the basest point of view, — he is a 
prejudiced savage, acting what he abhors, and abhor- 
ring that which is the unwilling party to his crime. 
Adieu. 



LXV. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE, 

Florence, November 16, 18 19. 
My dear Sir, — I envy you the first reading of 
Theocritus. Were not the Greeks a glorious peo- 
ple? What is there, as Job says of the leviathan, 



226 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

like unto them? If the army of Nicias had not been 
defeated under the walls of Syracuse, — if the Athe- 
nians had, acquiring Sicily, held the balance between 
Rome and Carthage, sent garrisons to the Greek 
colonies in the south of Italy, — Rome might have 
been all that its intellectual condition entitled it to 
be, a tributary, not the conqueror, of Greece ; the 
Macedonian power would never have attained to 
the dictatorship of the civilized states of the world. 
Who knows whether, under the steady progress 
which philosophy and social institutions would have 
made (for, in the age to which I refer, their progress 
was both rapid and secure) among a people of 
the most perfect physical organization, whether the 
Christian religion would have arisen, or the barba- 
rians have overwhelmed the wrecks of civilization 
which had survived the conquest and tyranny of the 
Romans? What then should we have been? As 
it is, all of us who are worth anything spend our 
manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the 
mistakes, of our youth. We are stuffed full of preju- 
dices \ and our natural passions are so managed, 
that if we restrain them we grow intolerant and pre- 
cise, because we restrain them not according to rea- 
son, but according to error ; and if we do not restrain 
them, we do all sorts of mischief to ourselves and 
others. Our imagination and understanding are alike 
subjected to rules the most absurd. So much for 
Theocritus and the Greeks. 

In spite of all your arguments, I wish your money 
were out of the funds. This middle course which 
you speak of, and which may probably have place, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 227 

will amount to your losing not all your income, nor 
retaining all, but have the half taken away. I feel 
intimately persuaded, whatever political forms may 
have place in England, that no party can continue 
many years, perhaps not many months, in the admin- 
istration, without diminishing the interest of the na- 
tional debt. i\nd once having commenced, — and 
having done so safely, — where will it end ? 

Give Henry my kindest thanks for his most in- 
teresting letter, and bid him expect one from me by 
the next post. 

Mary and the babe continue well. — Last night 
we had a magnificent thunder-storm, with claps that 
shook the house like an earthquake. Both Mary 

and C unite with me in kindest remembrances 

to all. 



LXVI. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Florence, November 23, 18 19. 

My dear Hunt, — Why don't you write to us ? 
I was preparing to send you something for your " In- 
dicator," but I have been a drone instead of a bee in 
this business, thinking that perhaps, as you did not 
acknowledge any of my late enclosures, it would not 
be welcome to you, whatever I might send. 

What a state England is in ! But you will never 
write politics. I don't wonder; but I wish, then, 
that you would write a paper in the Examiner, on 



228 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

the actual state of the country, and what, under all 
circumstances of the conflicting passions and interests 
of men, we are to expect ; — not what we ought to 
expect, nor what, if so and so were to happen, we 
might expect, but what, as things are, there is reason 
to believe will come ; — and send it me for my infor- 
mation. Every word a man has to say is valuable to 
the public now ; and thus you will at once gratify 
your friend, nay, instruct, and either exhilarate him, 
or force him to be resigned, and awaken the minds 
of the people. 

I have no spirits to write what I do not know 
whether you will care much about ; I know well that 
if I were in great misery, poverty, etc., you would 
think of nothing else but how to amuse and relieve 
me. You omit me if I am prosperous. 

I could laugh, if I found a joke, in order to put 
you in good humor with me after my scolding, — in 
good humor enough to write to us. . . . Affectionate 
love to and from all. This ought not only to be the 
Vale of a letter, but a superscription over the gate 
of life. 

I send you a sonnet. I don't expect you to pub- 
lish it, but you may show it to whom you please. 






PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 229 



LXVII. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Florence, November, 181 9. 
My dear Friend, — Two letters, both bearing 
date October 20, arrive on the same day; one is 
always glad of twins. 

You do not tell me whether you have received my 
lines on the Manchester affair. 1 They are of the exo- 
teric species, and are meant not for the Indicator, 
but the Examiner. I would send for the former, 
if you like, some letters on such subjects of art as 
suggest themselves in Italy. Perhaps I will, at a 
venture, send you a specimen of what I mean next 
post. I enclose you in this a piece for the Exam- 
iner, or let it share the fate, whatever that fate may 
be, of the " Masque of Anarchy." 2 

I am sorry to hear that you have employed your- 
self in translating the " Aminta," though I doubt not 
it will be a just and beautiful translation. You ought 
to write Amintas. You ought to exercise your fancy 
in the perpetual creation of new forms of gentleness 
and beauty. 

1 The " Masque of Anarchy," which Hunt would not pub- 
lish, " because," he said, " I thought that the public at large 
had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the 
sincerity and kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in 
this flaming robe of verse. ,, He did publish it, however, 
in 1832. 

2 " Peter Bell the Third." — M. S. 



230 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

With respect to translation, even / will not be se- 
duced by it ; although the Greek plays, and some of 
the ideal dramas of Calderon (with which I have 
lately, and with inexpressible wonder and delight, be- 
come acquainted), are perpetually tempting me to 
throw over their perfect and glowing forms the gray 
veil of my own words. And you know me too well 
to suspect that I refrain from a belief that what I could 
substitute for them would deserve the regret which 
yours would, if suppressed. I have confidence in 
my moral sense alone ; but that is a kind of original- 
ity. I have only translated the " Cyclops " of Euripi- 
des, when I could absolutely do nothing else ; and 
the " Symposium " of Plato, which is the delight and 
astonishment of all who read it ; I mean the original, 
or so much of the original as is seen in my transla- 
tion, not the translation itself. 

I think I have had an accession of strength since 
my residence in Italy, though the disease itself in the 
side, whatever it may be, is not subdued. Some day 
we shall all return from Italy. I fear that in England 
things will be carried violently by the rulers, and 
they will not have learned to yield in time to the 
spirit of the age. The great thing to do is to hold 
the balance between popular impatience and tyran- 
nical obstinacy, — to inculcate with fervor both the 
right of resistance and the duty of forbearance. You 
know my principles incite me to take all the good I 
can get in politics, forever aspiring to something 
more. I am one of those whom nothing will fully 
satisfy, but who are ready to be partially satisfied in 
all that is practicable. We shall see. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 231 

LXVIIL 

TO MR. OLLIER. 

Florence, December 15, 1819. 

Dear Sir, — Pray give Mr. Procter my best 
thanks for his polite attention. I read the article 
you enclosed with the pleasure which every one feels, 
of course, when they are praised or defended ; though 
the praise would have given me more pleasure if it 
had been less excessive. I am glad, however, to 
see the Quarterly cut up, and that by one of their 
own people. Poor Southey has enough to endure. 
Do you know, I think the article in Blackwood 
could not have been written by a favorer of Govern- 
ment and a religionist. I don't believe any such one 
could sincerely like my writings. After all, is it not 
some friend in disguise, and don't you know who 
wrote it? 

There is one very droll thing in the Quarterly. 
They say that " my chariot wheels are broken." 
Heaven forbid ! My chariot, you may tell them, 
was built by one of the best makers in Bond Street, 
and it has gone several thousand miles in perfect 
security. What a comical thing it would be to make 
the following advertisement : " A report having pre- 
vailed, in consequence of some insinuations in the 
Quarterly Review, that Mr. Shelley's chariot wheels 
are broken, Mr. Charters of Bond Street begs to 
assure the public that they, after having carried him 



232 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

through Italy, France, and Switzerland, still continue 
in excellent repair." 

When the box comes, you may write a note to Mr. 
Peacock ; or it would be better to call on him, and 
ask if my tragedy is accepted 7 If not, publish what 
you find in the box. I think it will succeed as a 
publication. Let " Prometheus " be printed without 
delay. You will receive the additions, w r hich Mrs. 
S. is now transcribing, in a few days. It has already 
been read to many persons. My Prometheus is 
the best thing I ever wrote. 

Pray what have you done with " Peter Bell " ? 
Ask Mr. Hunt for it, and for some other poems of a 
similar character I sent him to give you to publish. 
I think Peter not bad in his way ; but perhaps no 
one will believe in anything in the shape of a joke 
from me. 

Of course with my next box you will send me the 
" Dramatic Sketches" 1 I have only seen the ex- 
tracts in the Examiner. They have some passages 
painfully beautiful. When I consider the vivid en- 
ergy to which the minds of men are awakened in 
this age of ours, ought I not to congratulate myself 
that I am a contemporary with names which are 
great, or will be great, or ought to be great? 

Have you seen my poem, " Julian and Maddalo " ? 
Suppose you print that in the manner of Hunt's 
" Hero and Leander," for I mean to write three 
other poems, the scenes of which will be laid at 
Rome, Florence, and Naples, but the subjects of 

i Bv B. W. Procter. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 233 

which will be all drawn from dreadful or beautiful 
realities, as that of this was. 

If I have health — but I will neither boast nor 
promise. I am preparing an octavo on reform, — a 
commonplace kind of book, — which, now that I see 
the passion of party will postpone the great struggle 
till another year, I shall not trouble myself to finish 
for this season. I intend it to be an instructive and 
readable book, appealing from the passions to the 
reason of men. 



LXIX. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

Pisa, January 20, 1820. 

Dear Sir, — I send you the " Witch of Atlas" a 
fanciful poem, which, if its merit be measured by the 
labor which it cost, is worth nothing ; and the errata 
of " Prometheus," which I ought to have sent long 
since, — a formidable list, as you will see. > 

The reviews of my " Cenci " (though some of 
them, and especially that marked "John Scott," are 
written with great malignity) on the whole give me 
as much encouragement as a person of my habits of 
thinking is capable of receiving from such a source, 
which is inasmuch as they coincide with and con- 
firm my own decisions. My next attempt (if I 
should write more) will be a drama, in the composi- 
tion of which I shall attend to the advice of my 



234 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

critics, to a certain degree. But I doubt whether I 
shall write more. I could be content either with 
the Hell or the Paradise of poetry; but the torments 
of its Purgatory vex me, without exciting my powers 
sufficiently to put an end to the vexation. 

I have also to thank you for the present of one or 
two of your publications. - I am enchanted with your 
" Literary Miscellany/' although the last article it 
contains has excited my polemical faculties so vio- 
lently that, the moment I get rid of my ophthalmia, I 
mean to set about an answer to it, which I will send 
to you, if you please. It is very clever, but, I think, 
very false. 1 Who is your commentator on the Ger- 
man drama? He is a powerful thinker, though I 
differ from him toto coelo about the Devils of Dante 
and Milton. If you know him personally, pray ask 
him from me what he means by receiving the spirit 
into me ; 2 and (if really it is any good) how one is to 
get at it. I was immeasurably amused by the quota- 
tion from Schlegel about the way in which the popu- 
lar faith is destroyed, — first the Devil, then the 
Holy Ghost, then God the Father. I had written a 
Lucianic essay to prove the same thing. There are 
two beautiful stories, too, in this " Miscellany." It 
pleased me altogether infinitely. I was also much 

1 The article (which was written by Mr. Peacock) was an 
Essay on Poetry, which the writer regarded as a worn-out 
delusion of barbarous times. — L. S. 

2 The writer was the late Archdeacon Hare, who, despite 
his orthodoxy, was a great admirer of Shelley's genius. He 
contended that Milton erred in making the Devil a majestical 
being, and hoped that Shelley would in time humble his soul, 
and " receive the spirit into him." — L. S. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 235 

pleased with the " Retrospective Review/' — that is, 
with all the quotations from old books in it ; but it is 
very ill executed. 

When the spirit moves you, write and give me an 
account of the ill success of my verses. 

Who wrote the review in your publication of my 
" Cenci " ? It was written in a friendly spirit, and, if 
you know the author, I wish you would tell him from 
me how much obliged I am to him for this spirit, 
more gratifying to me than any literary laud. 



LXX. 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE. 

Pisa, February 9, 1820. 

Pray let us see you soon, or our threat may cost 
both us and you something, — a visit to Livorno. 
The stage direction on the present occasion is, Exit 
Moonshine and enter Wall ; or rather four walls, 
who surround and take prisoners the Gala and 
Dama. 

Seriously, pray do not disappoint us. We shall 
watch the sky, and the death of the sirocco must be 
the birth of your arrival. 

Mary and I are going to study mathematics. We 
design to take the most compendious, yet certain 
methods of arriving at the great results. We believe 
that your right-angled triangle will contain the solu- 
tion of the problem of how to proceed. 



236 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

Do not write, but come. Mary is too idle to write, 
but all that she has to say is come* She joins with 
me in condemning the moonlight plan. Indeed, we 
ought not to be so selfish as to allow you to come at 
all, if it is to cost you all the fatigue and annoyance 
of returning the same night. But it will not be, — 
so adieu. 



LXXI. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

Pisa, March 6, 1820. 
Dear Sir, — I do not hear that you have received 
" Prometheus " and the " Cenci " ; I therefore think 
it safest to tell you how and when to get them, if you 
have not yet done so. 

" Prometheus Unbound," I must tell you, is my 
favorite poem ; I charge you, therefore, specially to 
pet him and feed him with fine ink and good paper. 
" Cenci " is written for the multitude, and ought to 
sell well. I think, if I may judge by its merits, the 
" Prometheus " cannot sell beyond twenty copies. 
I hear nothing either from Hunt, or you, or any one. 
If you condescend to write to me, mention something 
about Keats. 

Allow me particularly to request you to send copies 
of whatever I publish to Horace Smith. 

Maybe you will see me in the summer ; but in that 
case I shall certainly return to this " Paradise of Ex- 
iles " by the ensuing winter. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 237 

If any of the Reviews abuse me, cut them out and 
send them. If they praise, you need not trouble 
yourself. I feel ashamed if I could believe that I 
should deserve the latter; the former, I flatter my- 
self, is no more than a just tribute. If Hunt praises 
me, send it, because that is of another character of 
thing. 



LXXII. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

Pisa, May 14, 1820, 
Dear Sir, — I reply to your letter by return of 
post, to confirm what I said in a former letter respect- 
ing a new edition of the " Cenci," which ought by all 
means to be instantly urged forward. 

As to the printing of the " Prometheus," be it as 
you will. But in this case I shall repose or trust in 
your care respecting the correction of the press ; es- 
pecially in the lyrical parts, where a minute error 
would be of much consequence. Mr. Gisborne will 
revise it ; he heard it recited, and will therefore 
more readily seize any error. 

If I had even intended to publish " Julian and 
Maddalo " with my name, yet I would not print it 
with " Prometheus.'' It would not harmonize. It is 
an attempt in a different style, in which I am not yet 
sure of myself, — a sertno pedestris way of treating 
human nature, quite opposed to the idealisms of 



238 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

that drama. If you print "Julian and Maddalo," I 
wish it to be printed in some unostentatious form, 
accompanied with the fragment of " Athanase," and 
exactly in the manner in which I sent it ; and I par- 
ticularly desire that my name be not annexed to the 
first edition of it, in any case. 

If " Peter Bell" be printed, (you can best judge if 
it will sell or no, and there would be no other reason 
for printing such a trifle,) attend, I pray you, particu- 
larly to completely concealing the author; and for 
Emma read Betty, as the name of Peter's sister. 
Emma, I recollect, is the real name of the sister of a 
great poet who might be mistaken for Peter. I 
ought to say that I send you poems in a few posts, 
to print at the end of " Prometheus," better fitted for 
that purpose than any in your possession. 

Keats, I hope, is going to show himself a great 
poet ; like the sun, to burst through the clouds, 
which, though dyed in the finest colors of the air, 
obscured his rising. The Gisbornes will bring me 
from you copies of whatever may be published when 
they leave England. 



LXXIIL 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Pisa, May, 1820. 
My dear Peacock, — I congratulate you most 
sincerely on your choice and on your marriage. . . . 
I was very much amused by your laconic account of 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 239 

the affair. It is altogether extremely like the denoue- 
ment of one of your own novels, and as such serves 
to a theory I once imagined, that in everything any 
man ever wrote, spoke, acted, or imagined is con- 
tained, as it were, an allegorical idea of his own fu- 
ture life, as the acorn contains the oak. 

My friends, the Gisbornes, are now really on their 
way to London, where they propose to stay only six 
weeks. I think you will like Mrs. Gisborne. Henry 
is an excellent fellow, but not very communicative. 
If you find anything in the shape of dulness or other- 
wise to endure in Mr. Gisborne, endure it for the 
lady's sake and mine ; but for Heaven's sake do 
not let him know that I think him stupid. Indeed, 
perhaps I do him an injustice. Hogg will find it 
very agreeable (if he postpones his visit so long, or 
if he visits me at all) to join them on their return. I 
wish you, and Hogg, and Hunt, and — I know not 
who besides — would come and spend some months 
with me together in this wonderful land. 

We know little of England here. I take in Galig- 
nani's paper, which is filled with extracts from the 
" Courier," and from those accounts it appears prob- 
able that there is but little unanimity in the mass 
of the people ; with on the one side the success of 
Ministers, and on the other the exasperation of the 
poor. 

I see my tragedy has been republished in Paris ; if 
that is the case, it ought to sell in London, but I 
hear nothing from Oilier. 

I have suffered extremely this winter; but I feel 



240 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

myself most materially better at the return of spring. 
I am on the whole greatly benefited by my residence 
in Italy, and but for certain moral causes should prob- 
ably have been enabled to re-establish my system 
completely. Believe me, my dear Peacock, yours 
very sincerely. 

Pray make my best regards acceptable to your new 
companion. 



LXXIV. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE- 

Pisa, May 26, 1820. 

How do you like London, and your journey ; the 
Alps in their beauty and their eternity ; Paris in its 
slight and transitory colors ; and the wearisome 
plains of France, and the moral people with whom 
you drank tea last night ? Above all, how are you ? 
And of the last question, believe me, we are anx- 
iously waiting for a reply, — until which I will say 
nothing, nor ask anything. I rely on the journal 
with as much security as if it were already written. 

I am just returned from a visit to Leghorn, Cas- 
ciano, and our old fortress at Sant' Elmo. 

What a glorious prospect you had from the win- 
dows of Sant' Elmo ! The enormous chain of the 
Apennines, with its many-folded ridges, islanded in 
the misty distance of the air ; the sea, so immensely 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 241 

distant, appearing as at your feet ; and the prodigious 
expanse of the plain of Pisa, and the dark green 
marshes lessened almost to a strip by the height of 
the blue mountains overhanging them. Then the 
wild and unreclaimed fertility of the foreground, and 
the chestnut trees, whose vivid foliage made a sort 
of resting-place to the sense before it darted itself 
to the jagged horizon of this prospect. I was alto- 
gether delighted. I had a respite from my nervous 
symptoms, which was compensated to me by a vio- 
lent cold in the head. There was a tradition about 
you at Sant' Elmo, — an English family that had 
lived here in the time of the French. The doctor, 
too, at the Bagni, knew you. 

Our anxiety about Godwin is very great, and any 
information that you could give a day or two earlier 
than he might, respecting any decisive event in his 
lawsuit, would be a great relief. Your impressions 
about Godwin (I speak especially to Madonna mia, 
who had known him before) will especially interest 
me. You know that added years only add 'to my 
admiration of his intellectual powers, and even the 
moral resources of his character. Of my other 
friends I say nothing. To see Hunt is to like him ; 
and there is one other recommendation which he 

has to you, he is my friend. To know H , if 

any one can know him, is to know something very 
unlike, and inexpressibly superior, to the great mass 
of men. 

Will Henry write me an adamantine letter, flowing 
not, like the words of Sophocles, with honey, but 

16 



242 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

molten brass and iron, and bristling with wheels and 
teeth? * I saw his steamboat asleep under the walls. 
I was afraid to waken it, and ask it whether it was 
dreaming of him, for the same reason that I would 
have refrained from awakening Ariadne, after Theseus 
had left her — unless I had been Bacchus. 



LXXV. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Leghorn, July 12, 1820. 

My dear Peacock, — I remember you said that 

when married you were afraid you would see 

or hear but little of him. " There are two voices," 
says Wordsworth, " one of the mountains and one of 
the sea, each a mighty voice." So you have two 
wives, — one of the mountains, all of whose claims 
I perfectly admit, whose displeasure I deprecate, and 
from whom I feel assured that I have nothing to fear : 
the other of the sea, perhaps, makes you write so 
much, that you have not a scrawl to spare. I make 
bold to write to you on the news that you are correct- 
ing my " Prometheus," for which I return thanks. I 
hear of you from Mr. Gisborne, but from you I do 
not hear. 

Nothing, I think, shows the generous gullibility of 
the English nation more than their having adopted 

1 Henry Reveley, an English engineer, was employed in 
building a steamboat to ply up and down the Italian coast. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 243 

her Sacred Majesty as the heroine of the day, in 
spite of all their prejudices and bigotry. I, for my 
part, of course wish no harm to happen to her, even 
if she has, as I firmly believe, amused herself in a 
manner rather indecorous with any courier or baron. 
But I cannot help adverting to it as one of the ab- 
surdities of royalty, that a vulgar woman, with all 
those low tastes which prejudice considers as vices, 
and a person whose habits and manners every one 
would shun in private life, without any redeeming 
virtues, should be turned into a heroine because she 
is a queen, or, as a collateral reason, because her 
husband is a king ; and he, no less than his ministers, 
are so odious that everything, however disgusting, 
which is opposed to them, is admirable. The Paris 
paper which I take in copied some excellent re- 
marks from the Examiner about it. 

We are just now occupying the Gisbornes' house 
at Leghorn, and I have turned Mr. Reveley's work- 
shop into my study. The Libecchio here howls like 
a chorus of fiends all day, and the weather is just 
pleasant, — not at all hot, the days being very misty, 
and the nights divinely serene. I have been reading 
with much pleasure the Greek romances. The best 
of them is the pastoral of Longus \ but they are all 
very entertaining, and would be delightful if they 
were less rhetorical and ornate. I am translating in 
ottava rima the " Hymn to Mercury " of Homer. 
Of course my stanza precludes a literal translation. 
My next effort will be that it should be legible, — a 
quality much to be desired in translations. 

I am told that the magazines, etc., blaspheme me 



244 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

at a great rate. I wonder why I write verses, for 
nobody reads them. It is a kind of disorder, for 
which the regular practitioners prescribe what is 
called a torrent of abuse ; but I fear that can hardly 
be considered as a specific. 

I enclose two additional poems, to be added to 
those printed at the end of " Prometheus " : and I 
send them to you, for fear Oilier might not know 
what to do in case he objected to some expressions 
in the fifteenth and sixteenth stanzas ; and that 
you would do me the favor to insert an asterisk or 
asterisks, with as little expense to the sense as may 
be. The other poem I send to you, not to make 
two letters. 

Believe me, my dear Peacock, sincerely and affec- 
tionately yours. 



LXXVI. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 
(Leghorn.) 

Casa Silva, Sunday Morning, 
July 23, 1820. 

My dear Love, — I believe I shall have taken a 
very pleasant and spacious apartment at the Bagni 
for three months. It is as all the others are, — dear. 
I shall give forty or forty- five sequins for the three 
months, but as yet I do not know which. I could 
get others something cheaper, and a great deal 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 245 

worse ; but if we would write, it is requisite to have 
space. 

To-morrow evening, or the following morning, you 

will probably see me. T is planning a journey 

to England to secure his property in the event of a 
revolution, which, he is persuaded, is on the eve of 
exploding. I neither believe that, nor do I fear that 
the consequences will be so immediately destructive 
to the existing forms of social order. Money will be 
delayed, and the exchange reduced very low, and 
my annuity and Mrs. M.'s, on account of these being 
money, will be in some danger; but land is quite 
safe. Besides, it will not be so rapid. Let us hope 

we shall have a reform. T will be lulled into 

security, while the slow progress of things is still 
flowing on, after this affair of the Queen may appear 
to be blown over. 

There is bad news from Palermo : the soldiers 
resisted the people, and a terrible slaughter, amount- 
ing, it is said, to four thousand men, ensued. The 
event, however, was as it should be. Sicily, like 
Naples, is free. By the brief and partial accounts 
of the Florence paper, it appears that the enthusiasm 
of the people was prodigious, and that the women 
fought from the houses, raining down boiling oil on 
the assailants. 

I have no thought of leaving Italy. The best 
thing we can do is to save money, and, if things take 
a decided turn, (which I am convinced they will at 
last, but not perhaps for two or three years,) it will 
be time for me to assert my rights, and preserve my 



246 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

annuity. Meanwhile, another event may decide us. 
Kiss sweet babe, and kiss yourself for me. — I love 
you affectionately. 



LXXVII. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 
(Bagni di San Giuliano.) 

[Leghorn,] Casa Ricci, September 1, 1820. 

I am afraid, my dearest, that I shall not be able 
to be with you so soon as to-morrow evening, though 
I shall use every exertion. Del Rosso I have not 
seen, nor shall until this evening. Jackson I have, 
and he is to drink tea with us this evening, and bring 
the " Constitutional." 

You will have seen the papers, but I doubt that they 
will not contain the latest and most important news. 
It is certain, by private letters from merchants, that 
a serious insurrection has broken out at Paris, and 
the reports last night are, that an attack made by the 
populace on the Tuileries still continued when the 
last accounts came away. At Naples the constitu- 
tional party have declared to the Austrian Minister, 
that, if the Emperor should make war on them, their 
first action would be to put to death all the members 
of the royal family, — a necessary and most just meas- 
ure, when the forces of the combatants, as well as 
the merits of their respective causes, are so unequal. 
That kings should be everywhere the hostages for 
liberty were admirable. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 247 

What will become of the Gisbornes, or of the 
English at Paris ? How soon will England itself, and 
perhaps Italy, be caught by the sacred fire? And 
what, to come from the solar system to a grain of 
sand, shall we do? 

Kiss babe for me, and your own self. I am some- 
what better, but my side still vexes me — - a little. 



LXXVIII. 

TO CLAIRE CLAIRMONT. 

Pisa, October 29, 1820. 
I wrote you a kind of scrawl the other day merely 
to show that I had not forgotten you. . . . Mrs. 
Mason has just given me your letter brought by the 
Tantinis. I called on the Tantinis last night, and am 
pained to find that they confirm the intelligence of 
your letter. They tell me you looked very melancholy 
and desolate, which they imputed to the weather; 
you must indeed be very uncomfortable for it, to be- 
come visible to them. Keep up your spirits, my best 
girl, until we meet at Pisa. But for Mrs. Mason [ 
should say come back immediately, and give up a 
plan so inconsistent with your feelings ; as it is, I fear 
you had better endure at least until you come here. 
You know, however, whatever you shall determine on, 
where to find one ever affectionate friend, to whom 
your absence is too painful for your return ever to 
be unwelcome. 



24S THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I have read or written nothing lately, having been 
much occupied by my sufferings, and by Medwin, 
who relates wonderful and interesting things of the 
interior of India. We have also been talking of a 
plan to be accomplished with a friend of his, a man 
of large fortune, who will be at Leghorn next spring, 
and who designs to visit Greece, Syria, and Egypt 
in his own ship. This man has conceived a great 
admiration for my verses, and wishes above all things 
that I could be induced to join his expedition. How 
far all this is practicable, considering the state of my 
finances, I know not yet. I know that if it were, it 
would give me the greatest pleasure, and the pleasure 
might be either doubled or divided by your presence 
or absence. ... I am going to study Arabic — for 
a purpose and a motive as you may conceive. I 
wish you would inquire for me at Florence whether 
there is an Arabic grammar or dictionary, and any 
other Arabic books, either printed or in manuscript, 
to be bought. You can ask Dr. Bojti, and if he 
knows nothing go to Molini's Library, and inquire of 
him. At all events, go to Molini's, and send me all 
the information you can pick up. I trust this to your 
kind love. If I buy and pay for any, I can send you 
scudi at the same time, which I have made some in- 
effectual efforts to convey to Florence. Pardon me, 
my dear, for mentioning scudi, and do not love me less 
because they are a portion of the inevitable dross of life 
which clings to our friendship. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 249 

LXXIX. 

TO JAMES OLLIER. 

Pisa, November 10, 1820. 

Dear Sir, — Mr. Gisborne has sent me a copy of 
the il Prometheus/' which is certainly most beautifully 
printed. It is to be regretted that the errors of the 
press are so numerous, and in many respects so de- 
structive of the sense of a species of poetry which, I 
fear, even without this disadvantage, very few will 
understand or like. I shall send you the list of er- 
rata in a day or two. 

I send some poems to be added to the pamphlet 
of u Julian and Maddalo." I think you have some 
other smaller poems belonging to that collection, 
and I believe you know that I do not wish my name 
to be printed on the title-page, though I have no ob- 
jection to my being known as the author. 

I enclose also another poem, which I do not wish 
to be printed with " Julian and Maddalo," but at the 
end of the second edition of a The Cenci," or of any 
other of my writings to which my name is affixed, if 
any other should at present have arrived at a second 
edition, which I do not expect. I have a purpose 
in this arrangement, and have marked the poem I 
mean by a cross. 

My friend Captain Medwin is with me, and has 
shown me a poem on Indian hunting, which he has 



250 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

sent you to publish. It is certainly a very elegant 
and classical composition, and, even if it does not 
belong to the highest style of poetry, I should be 
surprised if it did not succeed. May I challenge your 
kindness to do what you can for it ? 

You will hear from me again in a post or two. 
The "Julian and Maddalo," and the accompanying 
poems, are all my saddest verses raked up into one 
heap. I mean to mingle more smiles with my tears 
in future. 



LXXX. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Pisa, November [probably 15], 1820. 
My dear Peacock, — I delayed to answer your last 
letter, because I was waiting for something to say : 
at least something that should be likely to be interest- 
ing to you. The box containing my books, and con- 
sequently your Essay against the cultivation of poetry, 
has not arrived ; my wonder, meanwhile, in what 
manner you support such a heresy in this matter-of- 
fact and money-loving age, holds me in suspense. 
Thank you for your kindness in correcting i( Prome- 
theus," which I am afraid gave you a great deal of 
trouble. Among the modern things which have 
reached me is a volume of poems by Keats : in 
other respects insignificant enough, but containing 
the fragment of a poem called " Hyperion." I dare 
say you have not time to read it ; but it is cer- 
tainly an astonishing piece of writing, and gives me 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 251 

a conception of Keats which I confess I had not 
before. 

I hear from Mr. Gisborne that you are surrounded 
with papers — a chaos of which you are the god ; a 
sepulchre which encloses in a dormant state the 
chrysalis of the Pavonian Psyche. May you start 
into life some day, and give us another " Melincourt." 
Your Melincourt is exceedingly admired, and I think 
much more so than any of your other writings. In 
this respect the world judges rightly. There is more 
of the true spirit, and an object less indefinite, than 
in either " Headlong Hall " or Scythrop. 

1 am, speaking literarily, infirm of purpose. I 
have great designs, and feeble hopes of accomplish- 
ing them. I read books, and, though I am igno- 
rant enough, they seem to teach me nothing. To 
be sure, the reception the public have given me 
might go far enough to damp any man's enthusiasm. 
They teach you, it may be said, only what is true. 
Very true, I doubt not, and the more true the less 
agreeable. I can compare my experience in this re- 
spect to nothing but a series of wet blankets. Lhave 
been reading nothing but Greek and Spanish. Plato 
and Calderon have been my gods. A schoolfellow 
of mine from India is staying with me, and we are 
beginning Arabic together. Mary is writing a novel, 
illustrative of the manners of the Middle Ages in 
Italy, which she has raked out of fifty old books. I 
promise myself success from it ; and certainly, if 
what is wholly original will succeed, I shall not be 
disappointed. 

Adieu. I11 publico, commoda peccem, si longo scr- 
mone. 



252 THE BEST LETTERS OF 



LXXXI. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE. 
(At Leghorn.) 

Pisa, Oggi [November, 1820]. 

My dear Sir, — I send you the Phaedon and 
Tacitus. I congratulate you on your conquest of the 
Iliad. You must have been astonished at the per- 
petually increasing magnificence of the last seven 
books. Homer there truly begins to be himself. 
The battle of the Scamander, the funeral of Patroclus, 
and the high and solemn close of the whole bloody 
tale in tenderness and inexpiable sorrow, are wrought 
in a manner incomparable with anything of the same 
kind. The Odyssey is sweet, but there is nothing 
like this. 

I am bathing myself in the light and odor of the 
flowery and starry Autos. I have read them all more 
than once. Henry will tell you how much I am in 
love with Pacchiani. I suffer from my disease con- 
siderably. Henry will also tell you how much, and 
how whimsically, he alarmed me last night. 

My kindest remembrances to Mrs. Gisborne, and 
best wishes for your health and happiness. 

I have a new Calderon coming from Paris. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 253 

LXXXIL 

TO CLAIRE CLAIRMONT. 

Tuesday Evening, \ January 16,] 1821. 

Many thanks for your kind and tender letter, 
which Mrs. M. gave me to-day, several days after 
it had arrived. I had been very ill, and had not 
seen her for a fortnight. I had several times been 
going to write to you to request you to love me 
better than you do, when meanwhile your letter 
arrives. I shall punctually follow all such portions 
of the advice it contains which are practicable. 

I write to-night that I may not seem to neglect 
you, though I have little time. I am delighted to 
hear of your recovered health. May I entreat you 
to be cautious in keeping it? Mine is far better 
than it has been, and the relapse, which I now suffer, 
into a state of ease from one of pain, is attended 
with such an excessive susceptibility of nature that 
I suffer equally from pleasure and from pain. ' You 
will ask me naturally enough where I find any pleas- 
ure. The wind, the light, the air, the smell of a 
flower, affects me with violent emotions. There 
needs no catalogue of the causes of pain. 

I see Emily, 1 and, whether her presence is the 
source of pain or pleasure to me, I am equally ill- 
fated in both. I am deeply interested in her destiny, 
and that interest can in no manner influence it. She 

1 Emilia Viviani, the subject of " Epipsychidion." 



254 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

is not, however, insensible to my sympathy, and she 
counts it among her alleviations. As much comfort 
as she receives from my attachment to her, I lose. 
There is no reason that you should fear any mix- 
ture of that which you call love. My conception of 
Emilia's talents augments every day. Her moral 
nature is fine, but not above circumstances ; yet I 
think her tender and true, which is always something. 
How many are only one of these at a time ! 

So much for sentiment and ethics. The Williamses 
are come, and Mrs. W. dined here to-day, — an 
extremely pretty and gentle woman, apparently not 
very clever. I like her very much. I have only 
seen her for an hour, but I will tell you more another 
time. Mary will write you sheets of gossip. I have 
not seen Mr. W. The Greek expedition appears 
to be broken up. No news of any kind that I 
know of. 

You delight me with your progress in German, in 
spite of the reproach which accompanies the account 
of it. ... I wish to Heaven, my dear girl, that I 
could be of any avail to add to your pleasure or 
diminish your pain, — how ardently, you cannot 
know ; you only know — as you frequently take 
care to tell me — how vainly. ... I took up my 
pen for an instant only to thank you, and, if you will, 
to kiss you for your kind attention to me, and I find 
I have written in ill spirits, which may infect you. 
Let them not do so. I will write again to-morrow. 
Meanwhile yours most tenderly. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 255 

LXXXIII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Pisa, February 15, 1821. 
My dear Peacock, — The last letter I received 
from you, nearly four months from the date thereof, 
reached me by the boxes which the Gisbornes sent by 
sea. I am happy to learn that you continue in good 
external and internal preservation. I received at the 
same time your printed denunciations against gen- 
eral, and your written ones against particular poetry ; 
and I agree with you as decidedly in the latter as I 
differ in the former. The man whose critical gall is 

not stirred up by such rhymes as 's, may safely 

be conjectured to possess no gall at all. The world 
is pale with the sickness of such stuff. At the same 
time, your anathemas against poetry itself excited 
me to a sacred rage, or cacoethes scribendi of vindicat- 
ing the insulted Muses. I had the greatest possible 
desire to break a lance with you, within the lists of 
a magazine, in honor of my mistress Urania; but 
God willed that I should be too lazy, and wrested 
the victory from your hope : since first having un- 
horsed poetry, and the universal sense of the wisest 
in all ages, an easy conquest would have remained to 
you in me, the knight of the shield of shadow and the 
lance of gossamere. Besides, I was at that moment 
reading Plato's "Ion," which I recommend you to 
reconsider. Perhaps in the comparison of Platonic 



256 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and Malthusian doctrines, the mavis errare of Cicero 
is a justifiable argument ; but I have a whole quiver 
of arguments on such a subject. 

Have you seen Godwin's answer to the apostle of 
the rich ? And what do you think of it ? It has not 
yet reached me, nor has your box, of which I am in 
daily expectation. 

We are now in the crisis and point of expectation 
in Italy. The Neapolitan and Austrian armies are 
rapidly approaching each other, and every day the 
news of a battle may be expected. The former have 
advanced into the Ecclesiastical States, and taken 
hostages from Rome, to assure themselves of the 
neutrality of that power, and appear determined to 
try their strength in open battle. I need not tell you 
how little chance there is that the new and undis- 
ciplined levies of Naples should stand against a 
superior force of veteran troops. But the birth of 
liberty in nations abounds in reversals of the ordi- 
nary laws of calculation : the defeat of the Austrians 
would be the signal of insurrection throughout all 
Italy. 

I am devising literary plans of some magnitude. 
But nothing is more difficult and unwelcome than to 
write without a confidence of finding readers ; and if 
my plan of u The Cenci " found none or few, I de- 
spair of ever producing anything that shall merit them. 

Among your anathemas of the modern attempts 
in poetry, do you include Keats's "Hyperion"? I 
think it very fine. His other poems are worth little ; 
but if the Hyperion be not grand poetry, none has 
been produced by our contemporaries. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 257 

I suppose you are writing nothing but Indian laws, 
etc. I have but a faint idea of your occupation ; but 
I suppose it has something to do with pen and ink. 

Mary desires to be kindly remembered to you ; and 
I remain, my dear Peacock, yours very faithfully. 



LXXXIV. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

Pisa, February 16, 182 1. 
Dear Sir, — I send you three poems, — " Ode to 
Naples," a sonnet, and a longer piece, entitled "Epi- 
psychidion." The two former are my own ; and you 
will be so obliging as to take the first opportunity of 
publishing according to your own discretion. The 
longer poem, I desire, should not be considered as my 
own ; indeed, in a certain sense, it is a production 
of a portion of me already dead ; and in this sense 
the advertisement is no fiction. 1 It is to be published 
simply for the esoteric few ; and I make its author a 
secret, to avoid the malignity of those who turn sweet 
food into poison, transforming all they touch into 
the corruption of their own natures. My wish with 

1 In his Preface he speaks of the poem as having been 
written by a person who " died at Florence, as he was pre- 
paring for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, 
which he had bought, and where it was his hope to have 
realized a scheme of life suited perhaps to that happier and 
better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly 
practicable in this." The Preface is signed u S." — L. S. 

17 



258 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

respect to it is, that it should be printed immediately 
in the simplest form, and merely one hundred copies : 
those who are capable of judging and feeling rightly 
with respect to a composition of so abstruse a nature 
certainly do not arrive at that number, among those, 
at least, who would ever be excited to read an ob- 
scure and anonymous production ; and it would give 
me no pleasure that the vulgar should read it. If you 
have any bookselling reason against publishing so 
small a number as a hundred, merely, distribute cop- 
ies among those to whom you think the poetry would 
afford any pleasure, and send me, as soon as you can, 
a copy by the post. I have written it so as to give 
very little trouble, I hope, to the printer, or to the 
person who revises. I would be much obliged to 
you if you would take this office on yourself. 

Is there any expectation of a second edition of 
the " Revolt of Islam "? I have many corrections to 
make in it, and one part will be wholly remodelled. 
I am employed in high and new designs in verse ; 
but they are the labors of years, perhaps. 

Pray send me news of my intellectual children. For 
" Prometheus " I expect and desire no great sale. 
" The Cenci " ought to have been popular. I remain, 
dear Sir, your very obedient servant. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 259 

LXXXV. 

TO CLAIRE CLAIRMONT. 

Sunday [February 18, 182 1]. 

Your predilection for Germany, German literature 
and manners, and for an attempt at forming some 
connections there, still continues. There can be no 
harm in making the attempt, should you succeed in 
finding a fit occasion for it, because you can always 
recede in case it should not answer your expecta- 
tions. The situation of dame de compagnie is one 
indeed in which there is little to be hoped, compared 
with what is to be feared, calculating on common 
cases ; but I am willing to believe that yours is an 
exception to these, and that every one who knows 
you intimately must find a necessity of interesting 
themselves deeply in you. But what are your oppor- 
tunities, that you so confidently discuss the merits of 
the question, as if the determination of it w,ere in 
your power ? Has the Princess engaged to interest 
herself in your affairs, or any other of your acquaint- 
ances at Florence ? If indeed it be in your power 
to accompany some German lady of rank to her own 
country, I think, under the impressions you seem to 
have conceived, you ought not to delay putting it into 
effect. 

You are indeed Germanizing very fast, and the 
remark you made of the distinction between the man- 



260 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

ner in which the mind is expressed upon the physi- 
ognomy, or the entire figure, of the Italian or the 
Austrian, is in the choicest style of the criticism of 
pure reason. There is a great deal of truth in it ; of 
truth surrounded and limited by so many exceptions 
as entirely to destroy its being, as a practical law of 
pathognomy. I hope you will find Germany and the 
Germans answer your expectations. I have had no 
opportunity of forming an idea of them. Their phi- 
losophy, as far as I understand it, contemplates only 
the silver side of the shield of truth ; better in this 
respect than the French, who saw only the narrow 
edge of it. 

You send no news of Naples and Neapolitan af- 
fairs ; we know nothing of them except what we hear 
from Florence. Every post may be expected to 
bring decisive news, for even the news that they 
defend themselves against so immense and well ap- 
pointed a force is decisive. I hate the cowardly 
envy which prompts such base stories as Sgricci's 
about the Neapolitans ; a set of slaves who dare not 
to imitate the high example of clasping even the 
shadow of freedom, allege the ignorance and excesses 
of a populace whom oppression has made savages in 
sentiment and understanding. That the populace 
of the city of Naples are brutal, who denies to be 
true ; they cannot improvise tragedies as Sgricci can, 
but is it certain that under no excitement they would 
be incapable of more enthusiasm for their country? 
Besides, it is not of them we speak, but of the people 
of the kingdom of Naples, the cultivators of the soil, 
whom a sudden and great impulse might awaken into 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 261 

citizens and men, as the French and Spaniards have 
been awakened, and may render instruments of a sys- 
tem of future social life before which the existing an- 
archism of Europe will be dissolved and absorbed. 
This feeling is base among the Tuscans about Naples. 
As to the Austrians, I doubt not they are strong men, 
well disciplined, obeying the master motion like the 
wheels of a perfect engine ; they may even have as 
men more individual excellence and perfection (not 
that I believe it) than the Neapolitans ; but all these 
things, if the spirit of Regeneration is abroad, are 
chaff before the storm ; the very elements and events 
will fight against them • indignation and shameful 
repulse will burn after them to the valleys of the Alps. 
Lombardy will renew the league against the Imperial 
power ; Germany itself will wrest from its oppressors 
a power confided to them under stipulations which, 
after having assumed, they refused to carry into effect. 
You have seen or heard, I suppose, of the note sent 
by the British ministry to the Allied sovereigns. Even 
the unprincipled Castlereagh dared not join them 
against Naples, and ventured to condemn the' princi- 
ples of their alliance, saying as much as to forbid 
them to touch Spain and Portugal. If the Austrians 
meet with any serious check, they may as well at 
once retire, for the good spirit of the world is out 
against them. If they march to Naples at once, let 
us hide our heads in sorrow, for our hopes of political 
good are vain. 

What pleasure it gives me to hear that you are 
well ! Health is the greatest possession, health of 



262 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

body and mind, as the writer, weak enough in both, 
too well knows. Tell me particularly how you get on 
with your Italian friends. Study German ; I will give 
you a dictionary if I can find one at Leghorn. " Be 
strong, live happy, and love," says Milton. Adieu, 
dear girl ; confide and persuade yourself of my eter- 
nal and tender regard. 

Yours with deepest affection. 

Keats is very ill at Naples. I have written to him 
to ask him to come to Pisa, without, however, invit- 
ing him into our own house. We are not rich enough 
for that sort of thing. Poor fellow ! l 



LXXXVI. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

Pisa, February 22, 1821. 
Dear Sir, — Peacock's essay is at Florence at 
present. I have sent for it, and will transmit to you 
my paper [on Poetry 2 ] as soon as it is written, which 
will be in a very few days. Nevertheless, I should 
be sorry that you delayed your magazine through any 
dependence on me. I will not accept anything for 
this paper, as I had determined to write it, and 

1 On the same page of the MS. of this letter can be read 
the cancelled words in Shelley's handwriting : — 

" My dear Keats, — I learn this moment that you are at 
Naples and that — " 
See Dowden, II. 393. 

2 The " Defence of Poetry." 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 263 

promised it you, before I heard of your liberal ar- 
rangements ; but perhaps in future, if I think I have 
any thoughts worth publishing, I shall be glad to 
contribute to your magazine on those terms. Mean- 
while, you are perfectly at liberty to publish the " Ode 
to Naples," the Sonnet, or any short piece you may 
have of mine. 

I suppose " Julian and Maddalo " is published. 
If not, do not add the " Witch of Atlas " to that pe- 
culiar piece of writing ; you may put my name to the 
Witch of i\tlas, as usual. The piece I last sent you, 
I wish, as I think I told you, to be printed immedi- 
ately, and that anonymously. I should be very glad 
to receive a few copies of it by the box, but I am 
unwilling that it should be any longer delayed. 

I doubt about Charles the First ; but if I do write 
it, it shall be the birth of severe and high feelings. 
You are very welcome to it, on the terms you men- 
tion, and, when once I see and feel that I can write 
it, it is already written. My thoughts aspire to a 
production of a far higher character; but the execu- 
tion of it will require some years. I write what I 
write chiefly to inquire, by the reception which my 
writings meet with, how far I am fit for so great a 
task or not. And I am afraid that your account will 
not present me with a very flattering result in this 
particular. 

You may expect to hear from me within a week, 
with the answer to Peacock. I shall endeavor to 
treat the subject in its elements, and unveil the in- 
most idol of the error. 

If any Review of note abuses me excessively, or 
the contrary, be so kind as to send it me by post. 



264 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

m 
LXXXVIL 

TO T. L PEACOCK. 

Pisa, March 21, 1821. 

My dear Peacock, — I despatch by this post the 
first part of an essay, intended to consist of three 
parts, which I design for an antidote to your " Four 
Ages of Poetry. " * You will see that I have taken a 
more general view of what is poetry than you have, 
and will perhaps agree with several of my positions, 
without considering your own touched. But read 
and judge ; and do not let us imitate the great found- 
ers of the picturesque, Price and Payne Knight, who, 
like two ill-trained beagles, began snarling at each 
other when they could not catch the hare. 

I hear the welcome news of a box from England 
announced by Mr. Gisborne. How much new poetry 
does it contain? The Bavii and Maevii of the day 
are fertile ; and I wish those who honor me with 
boxes would read and inwardly digest your " Four 
Ages of Poetry " ; for I had much rather, for my 
own private reading, receive political, geological, and 
moral treatises, than this stuff in terza, ottava, and 
tremillesima rima, whose earthly baseness has at- 
tracted the lightning of your undiscriminating cen- 
sure upon the temple of immortal song. These 

1 The " Four Ages of Poetry" here alluded to, was pub- 
lished in Ollier's " Literary Miscellany." Shelley wrote the 
" Defence of Poetry " as an answer to it, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 265 

verses enrage me far more than those of Codrus did 
Juvenal, and with better reason. Juvenal need not 
have been stunned, unless he had liked it ; but my 
boxes are packed with this trash, to the exclusion of 
better matter. But your box will make amends. 

We are surrounded here in Pisa by revolutionary 
volcanoes, which as yet give more light than heat : 
the lava has not yet reached Tuscany. But the news 
in the papers will tell you far more than it is prudent 
for me to say \ and for this once I will observe your 
rule of political silence. The Austrians wish that 
the Neapolitans and Piedmontese would do the 
same. 

We have seen a few more people than usual this 
winter, and have made a very interesting acquaint- 
ance with a Greek Prince, 1 perfectly acquainted with 
ancient literature, and full of enthusiasm for the 
liberties and improvement of his country. Mary 
has been a Greek student several months, and is 
reading "Antigone" with our turbaned friend, who 
in return is taught English. 

I have had a severe ophthalmia, and have read or 
written little this winter ; and have made acquaint- 
ance in an obscure convent with the only Italian for 
whom I ever felt any interest.' 2 

1 Prince Alexander Mavrocordato, to whom Shelley dedi- 
cated his drama, " Hellas." 

2 Emilia Viviani, to whom " Epipsychidion " was addressed 



266 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

LXXXVIIL 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISB0RNE. 

Bagni, Tuesday Evening 
[June 5, 182 1]. 

My dear Friends, — We anxiously expect your 
arrival at the Baths ; but as I am persuaded that you 
will spend as much time with us as you can save 
from your necessary occupations before your depart- 
ure, I will forbear to vex you with importunity. My 
health does not permit me to spend many hours from 
home. I have been engaged these last days in 
composing a poem on the death of Keats, 1 which 
will shortly be finished ; and I anticipate the pleas- 
ure of reading it to you, as some of the very few 
persons who will be interested in it and understand 
it. It is a highly wrought piece of art, and perhaps 
better, in point of composition, than anything I have 
written. 

My unfortunate box ! it contained a chaos of the 
elements of " Charles I." If the idea of the creator 
had been packed up with them, it would have shared 
the same fate ; and that, I am afraid, has undergone 
another sort of shipwreck. 

Very faithfully and affectionately yours. 

1 "Adonais." 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 267 

LXXXIX. 

TO C. OLLIER. 

TiSA,/une 8, 1821. 

Dear Sir, — You may announce for publication a 
poem entitled "Adonais." It is a lament on the 
death of poor Keats, with some interposed stabs on 
the assassins of his peace and of his fame ; and will 
be preceded by a criticism on " Hyperion," asserting 
the due claims which that fragment gives him to the 
rank which I have assigned him. My poem is fin- 
ished, and consists of about forty Spenser stanzas. 
I shall send it you, either printed at Pisa, or tran- 
scribed in such a manner as it shall be difficult for 
the reviser to leave such errors as assist the obscurity 
of the " Prometheus." But, in case I send it printed, 
it will be merely that mistakes may be avoided ; [so] 
that I shall only have a few copies struck off in the 
cheapest manner. 

If you have interest enough in the subject, I could 
wish that you would inquire of some of the' friends 
and relations of Keats respecting the circumstances 
of his death, and could transmit me any information 
you may be able to collect, and especially as to the 
degree in which, as I am assured, the brutal attack in 
the Quarterly Review excited the disease by which 
he perished. 

I have received no answer to my last letter to 
you. Have you received my contribution to your 
Dear Sir, yours very sincerely. 



268 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

xc. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE. 

Pisa, Saturday, June 16, 1821. 

My dear Friend, — I have received the heart- 
rending account of the closing scene of the great 
genius whom envy and ingratitude scourged out of 
the world. 1 I do not think that, if I had seen it 
before, I could have composed my poem. The 
enthusiasm of the imagination would have overpow- 
ered the sentiment. 

As it is, I have finished my Elegy ; and this day 
I send it to the press at Pisa. You shall have a 
copy the moment it is completed. I think it will 
please you. I have dipped my pen in consuming 
fire for his destroyers ; otherwise the style is calm 
and solemn. 

Pray, when shall we see you ? Or are the streams 
of Helicon less salutary than sea-bathing for the 
nerves? Give us as much as you can before you go 
to England, and rather divide the term than not 
come soon. 

A droll circumstance has occured. " Queen Mab," 
a poem written by me when very young, in the most 
furious style, with long notes against Jesus Christ, 
and God the Father, and the King, and bishops, and 
marriage, and the devil knows what, is just published 

1 Referring to Keats. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 269 

by one of the low booksellers in the Strand, against 
my wish and consent, and all the people are at 
loggerheads about it. H. S. gives me this account. 
You may imagine how much I am amused. For 
the sake of a dignified appearance, however, and 
really because I wish to protest against all the bad 
poetry in it, I have given orders to say that it is all 
done against my desire, and have directed my attor- 
ney to apply to Chancery for an injunction, which 
he will not get. 1 

I am pretty ill, I thank you, just now ; but I hope 
you are better. 



XCI. 

TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE. 

My dearest Friends, — I am fully repaid for the 
painful emotions from which some verses of my 
poem sprang by your sympathy and approbation, 
which is all the reward I expect, and as much as 
I desire. It is not for me to judge whether, in the 
high praise your feelings assign me, you are right or 
wrong. The poet and the man are two different 
natures ; though they exist together, they may be 
unconscious of each other, and incapable of deciding 
on each other's powers and efforts by any reflex act. 

1 Shelley, a few days later, addressed a letter to the Ex- 
aminer, repudiating this poem, much of which, it will be 
remembered, was written when he was but eighteen years 
of age. 



270 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

The decision of the cause, whether or no / am a 
poet, is removed from the present time to the hour 
when our posterity shall assemble ; but the court is 
a very severe one, and I fear that the verdict will 
be, "Guilty, — death!" 

I shall be with you on the first summons. I hope 
that the time you have reserved for us, u this bank 
and shoal of time/' is not so short as you once 
talked of. 

In haste, most affectionately yours. 



XCIL 

TO CLAIRE CLAIRMONT. 

Pisa, Saturday \June 16, 1821]. 

I have received a most melancholy account of the 
last illness of poor Keats, which I will neither tell 
you nor send you, for it would make you too low- 
spirited. My Elegy on him is finished. I have 
dipped my pen in consuming fire to chastise his 
destroyers ; otherwise the tone of the poem is solemn 
and exalted. I send it to the press here, and you will 
soon have a copy. Horace Smith tells me of a cu- 
rious circumstance, which, were I in England, would 
work me much annoyance. A low bookseller has 
got hold of "Queen Mab/' and published it, and 
says he will defy all prosecutions, and is selling them 
by thousands. Horace Smith applied for an injunc- 
tion on my part, but, like Sou they in " Wat Tyler," 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 271 

was refused. The abuse which all the government 
prints are pouring forth on me, and, as Horace 
Smith says, the " diabolical calumnies which they 
invent, and which religion alone could inspire," is 
boundless. I enjoy, and am amused with, the tur- 
moil of these poor people ; but perhaps it is well for 
me that the Alps and the ocean are between us. 



XCIII. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE " QUARTERLY REVIEW." 

Sir, — Should you cast your eye on the signature 
of this letter before you read the contents, you might 
imagine that they related to a slanderous paper which 
appeared in your Review some time since. I never 
notice anonymous attacks. The wretch who wrote 
it has doubtless the additional reward of a conscious- 
ness of his motives, besides the thirty guineas a sheet, 
or whatever it is that you pay him. Of course you 
cannot be answerable for all the writings which you 
edit, and / certainly bear you no ill-will for having 
edited the abuse to which I allude, — indeed, I was 
too much amused by being compared to Pharaoh 
not readily to forgive editor, printer, publisher, 
stitcher, or any one, except the despicable writer, 
connected with something so exquisitely entertaining. 
Seriously speaking, I am not in the habit of permit- 
ting myself to be disturbed by what is said or written 
of me, though I dare say I may be condemned 



272 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

sometimes justly enough. But I feel, in respect to 
the writer in question, that " I am there sitting, where 
he durst not soar." 

The case is different with the unfortunate subject of 
this letter, the author of " Endymion,'' to whose feel- 
ings and situation I entreat you to allow me to call 
your attention. I write considerably in the dark ; but 
if it is Mr. Gifford that I am addressing, I am per- 
suaded that in an appeal to his humanity and justice 
he will acknowledge the fas ab hoste doceri. I am 
aware that the first duty of a reviewer is towards 
the public, and I am willing to confess that the 
Endymion is a poem considerably defective, and 
that perhaps it deserved as much censure as the 
pages of your Review record against it ; but, not to 
mention that there is certain contemptuousness of 
phraseology from which it is difficult for a critic to 
abstain, in the review of Endymion, I do not think 
that the writer has given it its due praise. Surely 
the poem, with all its faults, is a very remarkable 
production for a man of Keats's age, and the promise 
of ultimate excellence is such as has rarely been 
afforded even by such as has afterwards attained 
high literary eminence. Look at Book II., line 
833, etc., and Book III., line 113 to 120, — read 
down that page, and then again from line 193. j 
could cite many other passages to convince you 
that it deserved milder usage. Why it should have 
been reviewed at all, excepting for the purpose of 
bringing its excellences into notice, I cannot con- 
ceive, for it was very little read, and there was no 
danger that it should become a model to the age 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 273 

of that false taste with which I confess that it is 
replenished. 

Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of 
mind by this review, which, I am persuaded, was not 
written with any intention of producing the effect, 
to which it has at least greatly contributed, of em- 
bittering his existence, and inducing a disease from 
which there are now but faint hopes of his recovery. 
The first effects are described to me to have resem- 
bled insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that 
he was restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. 
The agony of his sufferings at length produced the 
rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and the usual 
process of consumption appears to have begun. He 
is coming to pay me a visit in Italy ; but I fear that 
unless his mind can be kept tranquil, little is to be 
hoped from the mere influence of climate. 

But let me not extort anything from your pity. I 
have just seen a second volumne, published by him 
evidently in careless despair. I have desired my 
bookseller to send you a copy, and allow me to 
solicit your special attention to the fragment of a 
poem entitled " Hyperion," the composition of which 
was checked by the review in question. The great 
proportion of this piece is surely in the very highest 
style of poetry. I speak impartially, for the canons 
of taste to which Keats has conformed in his other 
compositions are the very reverse of my own. I 
leave you to judge for yourself: it would be an insult 
to you to suppose that from motives, however honor- 
able, you would lend yourself to a deception of the 
public. 

18 



274 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

XCIV. 

TO A LADY. 

[Exact date unknown.] 
It is probable that you will be earnest to employ 
the sacred talisman of language. To acquire these 
you are now necessitated to sacrifice many hours of 
the time, when, instead of being conversant with 
particles and verbs, your nature incites you to con- 
templation and inquiry concerning the objects which 
they conceal. You desire to enjoy the beauties of 
eloquence and poetry, — to sympathize in the original 
language with the institutors and martyrs of ancient 
freedom. The generous and inspiriting examples of 
philosophy and virtue you desire intimately to know 
and feel ; not as mere facts detailing names, and 
dates, and motions of the human body, but clothed 
in the very language of the actors, — that language 
dictated by and expressive of the passions and prin- 
ciples that governed their conduct. Facts are not 
what we want to know in poetry, in history, in the 
lives of individual men, in satire, or panegyric. 
They are the mere divisions, the arbitrary points on 
which we hang, and to which we refer those delicate 
and evanescent hues of mind, which language delights 
and instructs us in precise proportion as it expresses. 
What is a translation of Homer into English? A 
person who is ignorant of Greek need only look at 
" Paradise Lost," or the tragedy of "Lear," trans- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 275 

lated into French, to obtain an analogical conception 
of its worthless and miserable inadequacy. Tacitus, 
or Livius, or Herodotus, are equally undelightful and 
uninstructive in translation. You require to know 
and to be intimate with those persons who have 
acted a distinguished part to benefit, to enlighten, 
or even to pervert and injure humankind. Before 
you can do this, four years are yet to be consumed 
in the discipline of the ancient languages, and those 
of modern Europe which you only imperfectly know, 
and which conceal from your intimacy such names 
as Ariosto, Tasso, Petrarch, and Machiavelli; or 
Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, etc. The French lan- 
guage you, like every other respectable woman, al- 
ready know ; and if the great name of Rousseau did 
not redeem it, it would have been perhaps as well 
that you had remained entirely ignorant of it. 



xcv. 

TO MR. AND MRS GISBORNE. 

Bagni, Friday Night 

My dear Friends, — I have been expecting every 
day a writ to attend at your court at Guebhard's, 
whence you know it is settled that I should conduct 
you hither to spend your last days in Italy. A thou- 
sand thanks for your maps ; in return for which I 
send you the only copy of " Adonais " the printer has 



276 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

yet delivered. I wish I could say, as Glaucus could, 
in the exchange for the arms of Diomed, — eKaro/^- 
/3iol ivveafioiiDV. 

I will only remind you of " Faust," my desire for 
the conclusion of which is only exceeded by my de- 
sire to welcome you. Do you observe any traces of 
him in the poem I send you? Poets, the best of 
them, are a very chameleonic race ; they take the 
color not only of what they feed on, but of the very 
leaves under which they pass. 

Mary is just on the verge of finishing her novel ; 
but it cannot be in time for you to take to England* — 
Farewell. 



XCVI. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY. 
(Bagni di Pisa.) 

Lione Bianco, Florence, Tuesday 
[August 1, 182 1]. 

My dearest Love, — I shall not return this even- 
ing; nor, unless I have better success, to-morrow. 
I have seen many houses, but very few within the 
compass of our powers ; and, even in those which 
seem to suit, nothing is more difficult than to bring 
the proprietors to terms. I congratulate myself on 
having taken the season in time, as there is great ex- 
pectation of Florence being full next winter. I shall 
do my utmost to return to-morrow evening. You 
may expect me about ten or eleven o'clock, as I 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 277 

shall purposely be late, to spare myself the excessive 
heat. 

The Gisbornes (four o'clock, Tuesday) are just set 
out in a diligence and four, for Bologna. They have 
promised to write from Paris. I spent three hours 
' this morning principally in the contemplation of the 
Niobe, and of a favorite Apollo ; all worldly thoughts 
and cares seem to vanish from before the sublime 
emotions such spectacles create ; and I am deeply 
impressed with the great difference of happiness en- 
joyed by those who live at a distance from these 
incarnations of all that the finest minds have con- 
ceived of beauty, and those who can resort to their 
company at pleasure. What should we think if we 
were forbidden to read the great writers who have 
left us their works ? And yet to be forbidden to live 
at Florence or Rome is an evil of the same kind, of 
scarcely less magnitude. 

I am delighted to hear that the W.'s are with you. 
I am convinced that Williams must persevere in the 
use of the doccia. Give my most affectionate remem- 
brances to them. I shall know all the houses in Flor- 
ence, and can give W. a good account of them all. 
You have not sent my passport, and I must get home 
as I can. I suppose you did not receive my note. 

Kiss little babe, and how is he ? But I hope to see 
him fast asleep to-morrow night. And pray, dearest 
Mary, have some of your novel prepared for my 
return. 



278 THE BEST LETTERS OF 



XCVII. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 
(Bagni di Pisa.) 

Bologna, Agosto 6 [182 1]. 
Dearest Mine, — I am at Bologna, and the Cara- 
vella is ordered for Ravenna. I have been detained, 
by having made an embarrassing and inexplicable 
arrangement, more than twelve hours, or I should 
have arrived at Bologna last night instead of this 
morning. Though I have travelled all night at the 
rate of two miles and a half an hour in a little open ca- 
lesso, I am perfectly well in health. One would think 
that I were the Spaniel of Destiny, for the more she 
knocks me about, the more I fawn on her. I had an 
overturn about daybreak ; the old horse stumbled and 
threw me and the fat vetturino into a slope of meadow, 
over the hedge. My angular figure struck where it 
was pitched, but my vetturino's spherical form rolled 
fairly to the bottom of the hill, and that with so few 
symptoms of reluctance in the life that animated it 
that my ridicule (for it was the drollest sight in the 
world) was suppressed by my fear that the poor devil 
had been hurt. But he was very well, and we con- 
tinued our journey with great success. My love to 
the Williamses. Kiss my pretty ones, and accept an 
affectionate one for yourself from me. The chaise 
waits. I will write the first night from Ravenna at 
length. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 279 



XCVIII. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

Ravenna, August 7, 1821. 

My dearest Mary, — I arrived last night at ten 
o'clock, and sat up talking with Lord Byron until 
five this morning. I then went to sleep, and now 
awake at eleven, and, having despatched my break- 
fast as quick as possible, mean to devote the interval 
until twelve, when the post departs, to you. 

Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted to see 
me. He has in fact completely recovered his health, 
and lives a life totally the reverse of that which he led 
at Venice. He has a permanent sort of liaison with 
Contessa Guiccioli, who is now at Florence, and 
seems from her letters to be a very amiable woman. 
She is waiting there until something shall be decided 
as to their emigration to Switzerland or stay in Italy ; 
which is yet undetermined on either side. 'She was 
compelled to escape from the Papal territory in great 
haste, as measures had already been taken to place 
her in a convent, where she would have been unre- 
lentingly confined for life. The oppression of the 
marriage contract, as existing in the laws and opin- 
ions of Italy, though less frequently exercised, is far 
severer than that of England. I tremble to think of 
what poor Emilia is destined to. 

Lord Byron had almost destroyed himself in Venice : 



280 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

his state of debility was such that he was unable to 
digest any food, he was consumed by hectic fever, 
and would speedily have perished, but for this attach- 
ment, which has reclaimed him from the excesses 
into which he threw himself from carelessness and 
pride, rather than taste. Poor fellow ! he is now quite 
well, and immersed in politics and literature. He 
has given me a number of the most interesting de- 
tails on the former subject, but we will not speak of 
them in a letter. Fletcher is here, and as if, like a 
shadow, he waxed and waned with the substance of 
his master ; Fletcher also has recovered his good 
looks, and from amidst the unseasonable gray hairs 
a fresh harvest of flaxen locks put forth. 

We talked a great deal of poetry, and such mat- 
ters, last night ; and as usual differed, and I think 
more than ever. He affects to patronize a system of 
criticism fit for the production of mediocrity, and al- 
though all his fine poems and passages have been 
produced in defiance of this system, yet I recog- 
nize the pernicious effects of it in "The Doge of 
Venice " ; and it will cramp and limit his future ef- 
forts, however great they may be, unless he gets rid 
of it. I have read only parts of it, or rather he 
himself read them to me, and gave me the plan of 
the whole. 

Lord Byron has also told me of a circumstance 
that shocks me exceedingly ; because it exhibits a 
degree of desperate and wicked malice for which I 
am at a loss to account. When I hear such things 
my patience and my philosophy are put to a severe 
proof, whilst I refrain from seeking out some ob- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 281 

scure hiding-place where the countenance of man 
may never meet me more. 1 

Imagine my despair of good, imagine how it is 
possible that one of so weak and sensitive a nature as 
mine can run further the gauntlet through this hellish 
society of men. You should write to the Hoppners 
a letter refuting the charge, in case you believe, and 
know, and can prove that it is false ; stating the 
grounds and proofs of your belief. I need not dic- 
tate what you should say, nor, I hope, inspire you 
with warmth to rebut a charge which you only can 
effectually rebut. If you will send the letter to me 
here, I will forward it to the Hoppners. Lord Byron 
is not up, I do not know the Hoppners' address, and 
I am anxious not to lose a post. 



XCIX. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

Thursday, August 8. 
My dearest Mary, — I wrote to you yesterday, 
and I begin another letter to-day, without knowing 

1 The subject referred to here was a slander circulated re- 
garding Shelley and Mary by the Hoppners, an English family 
that had professed great friendship for them. Mrs. Julian 
Marshall, in her recent " Life and Letters of Mary Shelley," 
deduces evidence which proves conclusively the falsity of this 
and other similar stories which were circulated about the 
Shelleys during their residence in Italy. 



282 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

exactly when I can send it, as I am told the post 
only goes once a week. I dare say the subject of 
the latter half of my letter gave you pain, but it was 
necessary to look the affair in the face, and the only 
satisfactory answer to the calumny must be given by 
you, and could be given by you alone. This is evi- 
dently the source of the violent denunciations of the 
Literary Gazette, in themselves contemptible enough, 
and only to be regarded as effects, which show us 
their cause, which, until we put off our mortal nature, 
we never despise, — that is, the belief of persons 
who have known and seen you that you are guilty of 
crimes. 

After having sent my letter to the post yesterday, 
I went to see some of the antiquities of this place, 
which appear to be remarkable. This city was once 
of vast extent, and the traces of its remains are to 
be found more than four miles from the gate of the 
modern town. The sea, which once came close to 
it, has now retired to the distance of four miles, 
leaving a melancholy extent of marshes, interspersed 
with patches of cultivation, and towards the sea-shore 
with pine forests, which have followed the retroces- 
sion of the Adriatic, and the roots of which are actu- 
ally washed by its waves. 

I went in L. B.'s carriage, first to the Chiesa San 
Vitale, which is certainly one of the most ancient 
churches in Italy. It is a rotunda, supported upon 
buttresses and pilasters of white marble ; the ill effect 
of which is somewhat relieved by an interior row of 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 283 

columns. The dome is very high and narrow. The 
whole church, in spite of the elevation of the soil, is 
very high for its breadth, and is of a very peculiar 
and striking construction. In the section of one of 
the large tables of marble with which the church is 
lined, they showed me the perfect figure, as perfect 
as if it had been painted, of a Capuchin friar, which 
resulted merely from the shadings and the position of 
the stains in the marble. This is what may be called 
a pure anticipated cognition of a Capuchin. 

I then went to the tomb of Theodosius, which has 
now been dedicated to the Virgin, without, however, 
any change in its original appearance. It is about a 
mile from the present city. This building is more 
than half overwhelmed by the elevated soil, although 
a portion of the lower story has been excavated, and 
is filled with brackish and stinking waters, and a sort 
of vaporous darkness, and troops of prodigious frogs. 
It is a remarkable piece of architecture, and without 
belonging to a period when the ancient taste yet sur- 
vived, bears, nevertheless, a certain impression of that 
taste. It consists of two stories ; the lower supported 
on Doric arches and pilasters, and a simple entabla- 
ture ; the other circular within, and polygonal outside, 
and roofed with one single mass of ponderous stone, 
for it is evidently one, and Heaven alone knows how 
they contrived to lift it to that height. It is a sort of 
flattish dome, rough-wrought within by the chisel, 
from which the Northern conquerors tore the plates 
of silver that adorned it, and polished without, with 
things like handles appended to it, which were also 
wrought out of the solid stone, and to which I sup- 



284 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

pose the ropes were applied to draw it up. You as- 
cend externally into the second story by a flight of 
stone steps, which are modern. 

The next place I went to was a church called la 
Chiesa di Sanf Appollinare, which is a basilica, and 
built by one, I forget whom, of the Christian Em- 
perors. It is a long church, with a roof like a barn, 
and supported by twenty-four columns of the finest 
marble, with an altar of jasper, and four columns of 
jasper, and giallo antico, supporting the roof of the 
tabernacle, which are said to be of immense value. 
It is something like that church (I forget the name 
of it) we saw at Rome more delle mura. I suppose 
the Emperor stole these columns, which seem not at 
all to belong to the place they occupy. Within the 
city, near the church of San Vitale, there is to be 
seen the tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia, daugh- 
ter of Theodosius the Great, together with those of 
her husband Constantius, her brother Honorius, and 
her son Valentinian, — all Emperors. 

Friday. 

We ride out in the evening, through the pine 
forests which divide this city from the sea. Our way 
of life is this, and I have accommodated myself to it 
without much difficulty : — L. B. gets up at two, 
breakfasts ; we talk, read, etc., until six ; then we 
ride, and dine at eight ; and after dinner sit talking 
till four or five in the morning. I get up at twelve, 
and am now devoting in the interval between my 
rising and his to you. 

L. B. is greatly improved in every respect. In 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 285 

genius, in temper, in moral views, in health, in hap- 
piness. The connection with La Guiccioli has been 
an inestimable benefit to him. He lives in consid- 
erable splendor, but within his income, which is now 
about ^4,000 a year; ^100 of which he devotes to 
purposes of charity. He has had mischievous pas- 
sions, but these he seems to have subdued, and he 
is becoming what he should be, a virtuous man. 
The interest which he took in the politics of Italy, 
and the actions he performed in consequence of it, 
are subjects not fit to be ivritten, but are such as will 
delight and surprise you. He is not yet decided to 
go to Switzerland, — a place, indeed, little fitted for 
him : the gossip and the cabals of those Anglicized 
coteries would torment him, as they did before, and 
might exasperate him into a relapse of libertinism, 
which he says he plunged into, not from taste, but 
despair. La Guiccioli and her brother (who is L. 
B.'s friend and confidant, and acquiesces perfectly in 
her connection with him) wish to go to Switzerland ; 
as L. B. says, merely from the novelty of the pleasure 
of travelling. L. B. prefers Tuscany or Lucca, and 
is trying to persuade them to adopt his views. He 
has made me write a long letter to her to engage 
her to remain, — an odd thing enough for an utter 
stranger to write on subjects of the utmost delicacy 
to his friend's mistress. But it seems destined that 
I am always to have some active part in everybody's 
affairs whom I approach. I have set down, in lame 
Italian, the strongest reasons I can think of against 
the Swiss emigration. To tell you truth, I should be 
very glad to accept, as my fee, his establishment in 



286 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

Tuscany. Ravenna is a miserable place ; the people 
are barbarous and wild, and their language the most 
infernal patois that you can imagine. He would 
be, in every respect, better among the Tuscans. I 
am afraid he would not like Florence, on account 
of the English there. There is Lucca, Florence, 
Pisa, Siena, and I think nothing more. What think 
you of Prato, or Pistoia, for him ? — no Englishman 
approaches those towns ; but I am afraid no house 
could be found good enough for him in that region. 

He has read to me one of the unpublished cantos 
of " Don Juan/' which is astonishingly fine. It sets 
him not only above, but far above, all the poets of 
the day, — every word is stamped with immortality. 
I despair of rivalling Lord Byron, as well I may, and 
there is no other with whom it is worth contending. 
This canto is in the style, but totally, and sustained 
with incredible ease and power, like the end of the 
second canto. There is not a word which the most 
rigid asserter of the dignity of human nature would 
desire to be cancelled. It fulfils, in a certain degree, 
what I have long preached of producing, — some- 
thing wholly new and relative to the age, and yet 
surpassingly beautiful. It may be vanity, but I think 
I see the trace of my earnest exhortations to him to 
create something wholly new. He has finished his 
Life up to the present time, and given it to Moore, 
with liberty for Moore to sell it for the best price he 
can get, with condition that the bookseller should 
publish it after his death. Moore has sold it to 
Murray for two thousand pounds. I have spoken to 
him of Hunt, but not with a direct view of demand- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 287 

ing a contribution; and, though I am sure that if 
asked it would not be refused, yet there is some- 
thing in me that makes it impossible. Lord Byron 
and I are excellent friends, and were I reduced to 
poverty, or were I a writer who had no claims to 
a higher station than I possess, or did I possess a 
higher than I deserve, we should appear in all things 
as such, and I would freely ask him any favor. 
Such is not the case. The demon of mistrust and 
pride lurks between two persons in our situation, 
poisoning the freedom of our intercourse. This is 
a tax, and a heavy one, which we must pay for being 
human. I think the fault is not on my side, nor is 
it likely, I being the weaker. I hope that in the next 
world these things will be better managed. What 
is passing in the heart of another rarely escapes 
the observation of one who is a strict anatomist of 
his own. 

Write to me at Florence, where I shall remain a 
day at least, and send me letters, or news of letters. 
How is my little darling? And how are you, and 
how do you get on with your book? Be severe in 
your corrections, and expect severity from me, your 
sincere admirer. I flatter myself you have composed 
something unequalled in its kind, and that, not con- 
tent with the honors of your birth and your heredi- 
tary aristocracy, you will add still higher renown to 
your name. Expect me at the end of my appointed 
time. I do not think I shall be detained. Is C. 
with you, or is she coming? Have you heard any- 
thing of my poor Emilia, from whom I got a letter 
the day of my departure, saying that her marriage 



288 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

was deferred for a very short time, on account of 
the illness of her sposo ? How are the Williamses, 
and Williams especially ? Give my very kindest love 
to them. 

Lord B. has here splendid apartments in the house 
of his mistress's husband, who is one of the richest 
men in Italy. She is divorced, with an allowance 
of twelve hundred crowns a year, a miserable pittance 
from a man who has a hundred and twenty thousand 
a year. Here are two monkeys, five cats, eight 
dogs, and ten horses, all of whom (except the horses) 
walk about the house like the masters of it. Tita 
the Venetian is here, and operates as my valet; a 
fine fellow, with a prodigious black beard, and who 
has stabbed two or three people, and is one of the 
most good-natured looking fellows I ever saw. 

We have good rumors of the Greeks here, and a 
Russian war. I hardly wish the Russians to take 
any part in it. My maxim is with ^Eschylus : to 
Sucrcre/Ses — /xera fxev irXetova tlkt€l, cr^erepa SetKora 
yewa. There is a Greek exercise for you. How 
should slaves produce anything but tyranny, — even 
as the seed produces the plant ? 

Adieu, dear Mary. 



C. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Ravenna, August [probably 10], 1821. 
My dear Peacock, — I received your last letter 
just as I was setting off from the Bagni on a visit to 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 289 

Lord Byron at this place. Many thanks for all your 
kind attention to my accursed affairs. . . . 

I have sent you by the Gisbornes a copy of the 
u Elegy on Keats." The subject, I know, will not 
please you ; but the composition of the poetry, and the 
taste in which it is written, I do not think bad. You 
and the enlightened public will judge. Lord Byron is 
in excellent cue both of health and spirits. He has 
got rid of all those melancholy and degrading habits 
which he indulged at Venice. He lives with one 
woman, a lady of rank here, to whom he is attached, 
and who is attached to him, and is in every respect 
an altered man. He has written three more cantos 
of " Don Juan." I have yet only heard the fifth, and 
I think that every word of it is pregnant with immor- 
tality. I have not seen his late plays, except " Marino 
Faliero," which is very well, but not so transcen- 
dently fine as Don Juan. Lord Byron gets up at 
two. I get up — quite contrary to my usual custom, 
but one must sleep or die, like Southey's sea-snake in 
Kehama — at twelve. After breakfast, we sit talking 
till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine 
forests which divide Ravenna from the sea ; then 
come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in 
the morning. I do not think this will kill me in a 
week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. 

I write nothing, and probably shall write no more. 
It offends me to see my name classed among those 
who have no name. If I cannot be something bet- 
ter, I had rather be nothing. My motive was never 
the infirm desire of fame ; and if I should continue 

19 



290 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

an author, I feel that I should desire it. This cup is 
justly given to one only of an age ; indeed, partici- 
pation would make it worthless : and unfortunate they 
who seek it and find it not. 



CI. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

Ravenna, Saturday 
My dear Mary, — You will be surprised to hear 
that L. B. has decided upon coming to Pisa, in case 
he shall be able, with my assistance, to prevail upon 
his mistress to remain in Italy, of which I think there 
is little doubt. He wishes for a large and magnifi- 
cent house, but he has furniture of his own, which 
he would send from Ravenna. Inquire if any of the 
large palaces are to be let. We discussed Prato, Pis- 
toia, Lucca, etc., but they would not suit him so well 
as Pisa, to which, indeed, he shows a decided pref- 
erence. So let it be ! Florence he objects to, on 
account of the prodigious influx of English. 

I don't think this circumstance ought to make any 
difference in our own plans with respect to this win- 
ter in Florence, because we could easily reassume 
our station with the spring, at Pugnano or the baths, 
in order to enjoy the society of the noble lord. But 
do you consider this point, and write to me your full 
opinion, at the Florence post-office. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 291 

I suffer much today from the pain in my side, 
brought on, I believe, by this accursed water. In 
other respects, I am pretty well, and my spirits are 
much improved ; they had been improving, indeed, 
before I left the baths, after the deep dejection of 
the early part of the year. 

I am reading " Anastasius." One would think that 
L. Bo had taken his idea of the three last cantos of 
Don Juan from this book. That, of course, has noth- 
ing to do with the merit of this latter, poetry having 
nothing to do with the invention of facts. It is a 
very powerful, and very entertaining novel, and a 
faithful picture, they say, of modern Greek manners. 
I have read L. B.'s Letter to Bowles; some good 
things, — but he ought not to write prose criticism. 

You will receive a long letter, sent with some of 
L. B.'s express to Florence. I write this in haste. 



CII. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

Ravenna, August 15, 1821. 

I went the other day to see Allegra 1 at her convent, 
and stayed with her about three hours. She is grown 
tall and slight for her age, and her face is somewhat 
altered. The traits have become more delicate, and 
she is much paler, probably from the effect of im- 

1 A natural daughter of Byron's. 



292 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

proper food. She yet retains the beauty of her deep 
blue eyes, and of her mouth ; but she has a contem- 
plative seriousness which, mixed with her excessive 
vivacity, which has not yet deserted her, has a very 
peculiar effect in a child. She is under very strict 
discipline, as may be observed from the immediate 
obedience she accords to the will of her attendants. 
This seems contrary to her nature, but I do not think 
it has been obtained at the expense of much severity. 
Her hair, scarcely darker than it was, is beautifully 
profuse, and hangs in large curls on her neck. She 
was prettily dressed in white muslin, and an apron of 
black silk, with trousers. Her light and airy figure 
and her graceful motions were a striking contrast to 
the other children there. She seemed a thing of a 
finer and a higher order. At first she was very shy, 
but after a little caressing, and especially after I had 
given her a gold chain which I had bought at Ra- 
venna for her, she grew more familiar, and led me all 
over the garden, and all over the convent, running 
and skipping so fast that I could hardly keep up with 
her. She showed me her little bed, and the chair 
where she sat at dinner, and the carozzina in which 
she and her favorite companions drew each other 
along a walk in the garden. I had brought her a 
basket of sweetmeats, and before eating any of them 
she gave her companions and each of the nuns a por- 
tion. This is not much like the old Allegra. I asked 
her what I should say from her to her mamma, and she 
said, "Che mi manda un bacio e un bel vestituro. ,, 
" E come vuoi il vestituro sia fatto? " 
"Tutto di seta e d' oro," was her reply. 



PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE V. 293 

Her predominant foible seems the love of distinc- 
tion and vanity, and this is a plant which produces 
good or evil according to the gardener's skill. I then 
asked what I should say to papa? V Che venga farmi 
un visitino e che porta seco la Mammina" Before I 
went away, she made me run all over the convent, 
like a mad thing. The nuns, who were half in bed, 
were ordered to hide themselves, and on returning 
Allegra began ringing the bell which calls the nuns to 
assemble. The tocsin of the convent sounded, and 
it required all the efforts of the prioress to prevent the 
spouses of God from rendering themselves, dressed 
or undressed, to the accustomed signal. Nobody 
scolded her for these scafifiature, so I suppose she is 
well treated, so far as temper is concerned. Her in- 
tellect is not much cultivated. She knows certain 
orazioni by heart, and talks and dreams of Paradiso 
and all sorts of things, and has a prodigious list of 
saints, and is always talking of the Bambino. This 
will do her no harm, but the idea of bringing up 
so sweet a creature in the midst of such trash till 
sixteen ! 



cm. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

Ravenna, Wednesday. 
My dearest Love, — I write, though I doubt 
whether I shall not arrive before this letter, as the 



294 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

post only leaves Ravenna once a week, on Saturdays, 
and as I hope to set out to-morrow evening by the 
courier. But as I must necessarily stay a day at 
Florence, and as the natural incidents of travelling 
may prevent me from taking my intended advantage 
of the couriers, it is probable that this letter will ar- 
rive first. Besides, as I will explain, I am not yet 
quite my own master. But that by and by. I do 
not think it necessary to tell you of my impatience to 
return to you and my little darling, or the disap- 
pointment with which I have prolonged my absence 
from you. I am happy to think that you are not 
quite alone. 

Lord Byron is still decided upon Tuscany ; and 
such is his impatience, that he has desired me — as 
if I should not arrive in time — to write to you to 
inquire for the best unfurnished palace in Pisa, and 
to enter upon a treaty for it. It is better not to be 
on the Lung' Arno ; but, in fact, there is no such 
hurry, and as I shall see you so soon it is not worth 
while to trouble yourself about it. 

I told you I had written by L. B.'s desire to La 
Guiccioli, to dissuade her and her family from Swit- 
zerland. Her answer is this moment arrived, and 
my representation seems to have reconciled them to 
the unfitness of that step. At the conclusion of a let- 
ter, full of all the fine things she says she has heard of 
me, is this request, which I transcribe : " Signore — 
la vostra bonta mi fa ardita di chiedervi un favore — 
me lo accorderete voi? Non partite da Ravenna 
senza Milord." Of course, being now, by all the 
laws of knighthood, captive to a lady's request, I 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 295 

shall only be at liberty on my parol, until Lord 
Byron is settled at Pisa. I shall reply, of course, 
that the boon is granted, and that, if her lover is re- 
luctant to quit Ravenna after I have made arrange- 
ments for receiving him at Pisa, I am bound to place 
myself in the same situation as now, to assail him 
with importunities to rejoin her. Of this there is, 
fortunately, no need ; and I need not tell you there 
is no fear that this chivalric submission of mine to 
the great general laws of antique courtesy, against 
which I never rebel, and which is my religion, should 
interfere with my quick returning, and long remaining 
with you, dear girl. 

I have seen Dante's tomb, and worshipped the 
sacred spot. The building and its accessories are 
comparatively modern, but the urn itself, and the tab- 
let of marble, with his portrait in relief, are evidently 
of equal antiquity with his death. The counte- 
nance has all the marks of being taken from his own ; 
the lines are strongly marked, far more than the por- 
traits, which, however, it resembles ; except, indeed, 
the eye, which is half closed, and reminded me of 
Pacchiani. It was probably taken after death. I 
saw the library, and some specimens of the earliest 
illuminated printing from the press of Faust. They 
are on vellum, and of an execution little inferior to 
that of the present day. 

We ride out every evening as usual, and practise 
pistol-shooting at a pumpkin ; and I am not sorry to 
observe that I approach towards my noble friend's 
exactness of aim. The water here is villanous, and 
I have suffered tortures ; but I now drink nothing 



296 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

but alcalescent water, and am much relieved. I 
have the greatest trouble to get away ; and L. B., as 
a reason for my stay, has urged that, without either 
me or the Guiccioli, he will certainly fall into his old 
habits. I then talk, and he listens to reason ; and I 
earnestly hope that he is too well aware of the terri- 
ble and degrading consequences of his former mode 
of life to be in danger from the short interval of 
temptation that will be left him. L. B. speaks with 
great kindness and interest of you, and seems to wish 
to see you. 

Ravenna, Thursday. 

Lord Byron is immediately coming to Pisa. He 
will set off the moment I can get him a house. Who 
would have imagined this? Our first thought ought 
to be , our second our own plans. The hesita- 
tion in your letter about Florence has communicated 
itself to me ; although I hardly see what we can do 
about Horace Smith, to whom our attentions are so 
due, and would be so useful. If I do not arrive be- 
fore this long scrawl, write something to Florence to 
decide me. I shall certainly, not without strong 
reasons, at present sign the agreement for the old 
codger's house ; although the extreme beauty and 
fitness of the place, should we decide on Florence, 
might well overbalance the objection of your deaf 
visitor. One thing, — with Lord Byron and the peo- 
ple we know at Pisa, we should have a security and 
protection, which seems to be more questionable at 
Florence. But I do not think that this consideration 
ought to weigh. What think you of remaining at 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 297 

Pisa? The Williamses would probably be induced 
to stay there if we did ; Hunt would certainly stay, at 
least this winter, near us, should he emigrate at all ; 
Lord Byron and his Italian friends would remain 
quietly there ; and Lord Byron has certainly a great 
regard for us ; — the regard of such a man is worth 
— some of the tribute we must pay to the base pas- 
sions of humanity in any intercourse with those within 
their circle ; he is better worth it than those on whom 
we bestow it from mere custom. 

My greatest content would be utterly to desert all 
human society. I would retire with you and our 
child to a solitary island in the sea, would build a 
boat, and shut upon my retreat the floodgates of the 
world. I would read no reviews, and talk with no 
authors. If I dared trust my imagination, it would 
tell me that there are one or two chosen companions 
besides yourself whom I should desire. But to this 
I would not listen, — where two or three are gathered 
together, the devil is among them. And good far 
more than evil impulses, love far more than hatred, 
has been to me, except as you have been its object, 
the source of all sorts of mischief. So on this plan 
I would be alone, and would devote either to obliv- 
ion or to future generations the overflowings of a 
mind which, timely withdrawn from the contagion, 
should be kept fit for no baser object. But this it 
does not appear that we shall do. 

The other side of the alternative (for a medium 
ought not to be adopted) is to form for ourselves a 
society of our own class, as much as possible, in 



298 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

intellect, or in feelings ; and to connect ourselves 
with the interests of that society. Our roots never 
struck so deeply as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree 
flourishes not. People who lead the lives which we 
led until last winter are like a family of Wahabee 
Arabs pitching their tent in the midst of London. 
We must do one thing or the other, — for yourself, 
for our child, for our existence. The calumnies, 
the sources of which are probably deeper than we 
perceive, have ultimately for object the depriving 
us of the means of security and subsistence. You 
will easily perceive the gradations by which calumny 
proceeds to pretext, pretext to persecution, and per- 
secution to the ban of fire and water. It is for this, 
and not because this or that fool, or the whole court 
of fools, curse and rail, that calumny is worth refuting 
or chastising. 



CIV. 

TO LEIGH HUNT. 

Pisa, August 26, 1821. 
My dearest Friend, — Since I last wrote to you, 
I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna. 
The result of this visit was a determination, on his 
part, to come and live at Pisa ; and 1 have taken 
the finest palace on the Lung' Arno for him. But 
the material part of my visit consists in a message 
which he desires me to give you, and which, I think, 
ought to add to your determination, — for such a one 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 299 

I hope you have formed, of restoring your shattered 
health and spirits by a migration to these u regions 
mild of calm and serene air." 

He proposes that you should come and go shares 
with him and me in a periodical work, to be con- 
ducted here ; in which each of the contracting par- 
ties should publish all their original compositions, 
and share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but 
for some reason it was never brought to bear. There 
can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in 
which you and Lord Byron engage must, from vari- 
ous, yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As for 
myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link 
between you and him, until you can know each 
other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to 
entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, I 
withhold from Lord Byron) nothing would induce 
me to share in the profits, and still less in the bor- 
rowed splendor of such a partnership. You and he, 
in different manners, would be equal, and would 
bring, in a different manner, but in the same propor- 
tion, equal stocks of reputation and success. Do 
not let my frankness with you, nor my belief that 
you deserve it more than Lord Byron, have the effect 
of deterring you from assuming a station in modern 
literature which the universal voice of my contempo- 
raries forbids me either to stoop or to aspire to. I 
am, and I desire to be, nothing. 

I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending 
a remittance for your journey ; because there are 
men, however excellent, from whom we would never 
receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the 



300 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

word ; and I am as jealous for my friend as foi 
myself; but I suppose that I shall at last make up 
an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to 
the many obligations he has conferred on me. I 
know I need only ask. 

I think I have never told you how very much I 
like your " Amyntas " ; it almost reconciles me to 
translations. In another sense I still demur. You 
might have written another such poem as the 
" Nymphs/' with no great access of efforts. I am 
full of thoughts and plans, and should do something, 
if the feeble and irritable frame which encloses it was 
willing to obey the spirit. I fancy that then I should 
do great things. Before this, you will have seen 
"Adonais." Lord Byron, I suppose from modesty, 
on account of his being mentioned in it, did not say 
a word of " Adonais," though he was loud in his 
praise of " Prometheus/' and, what you will not 
agree with him in, censure of "The Cenci." Cer- 
tainly, if " Marino Faliero " is a drama, " The Cenci " 
is not, — but that between ourselves. Lord Byron 
is reformed, as far as gallantry goes, and lives with a 
beautiful and sentimental Italian lady, who is as 
much attached to him as may be. I trust greatly 
to his intercourse with you, for his creed to become 
as pure as he thinks his conduct is. He has many 
generous and exalted qualities, but the canker of 
aristocracy wants to be cut out. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 30 1 

cv. 

TO HORACE SMITH. 

Pisa, September 14, 1821. 
My dear Smith, — I cannot express the pain and 
disappointment with which I learn the change in 
your plans, no less than the afflicting cause of it. 
Florence will no longer have any attractions for me 
this winter, and I shall contentedly sit down in this 
humdrum Pisa, and refer to hope and to chance 
the pleasure I had expected from your society this 
winter. 

I had marked down several houses in Florence, 
and one especially on the Arno, a most lovely place, 
though they asked rather more than perhaps you 
would have chosen to pay, — yet nothing approach- 
ing to an English price. I do not yet entirely give 
you up. Indeed, I should be sorry not to hope 
that Mrs. Smith's state of health w r ould not soon 
become such as to remove your principal objection 
to this delightful climate. I have not, with the ex- 
ception of three or four days, suffered in the least 
from the heat this year. Though it is but fair to 
confess that my temperament approaches to that of 
the salamander. 

We expect Lord Byron here in about a fortnight. 
I have just taken the finest palace in Pisa for him, 
and his luggage, and his horses, and all his train, are, 
I believe, already on their way hither. I dare say 



302 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

you have heard of the life he led at Venice, rivalling 
the wise Solomon almost in the number of his concu- 
bines. Well, he is now quite reformed, and is lead- 
ing a most sober and decent life, as cavalier e servente 
to a very pretty Italian woman, who has already ar- 
rived at Pisa with her father and her brother (such 
are the manners of Italy), as the jackals of the lion. 
He is occupied in forming a new drama, and, with 
views which I doubt not will expand as he proceeds, 
is determined to write a series of plays, in which he 
will follow the French tragedians and Alfieri, rather 
than those of England and Spain, and produce some- 
thing new, at least to England. This seems to me 
the wrong road; but genius like his is destined to 
lead, and not to follow. He will shake off his shackles 
as he finds they cramp him. I believe he will pro- 
duce something very great ; and that familiarity with 
the dramatic power of human nature will soon enable 
him to soften down the severe and unharmonizing 
traits of his " Marino Faliero." I think you know 
Lord Byron personally, or is it your brother ? If the 
latter, I know that he wished particularly to be intro- 
duced to you, and that he will sympathize in some 
degree in this great disappointment which I feel in 
the change, or, as I yet hope, in the prorogation of 
your plans. 

I am glad you like " Adonais," and, particularly, 
that you do not think it metaphysical, which I was 
afraid it was. I was resolved to pay some tribute of 
sympathy to the unhonored dead, but I wrote, as 
usual, with a total ignorance of the effect that I should 
produce. — I have not yet seen your pastoral drama ; 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 303 

if you have a copy, could you favor me with it? It 
will be six months before I shall receive it from Eng- 
land. I have heard it spoken of with high praise, 
and I have the greatest curiosity to see it. 

All public attention is now centred on the wonder- 
ful revolution in Greece. I dare not, after the events 
of last winter, hope that slaves can become freemen 
so cheaply; yet I know one Greek of the highest 
qualities, both of courage and conduct, the Prince 
Mavrocordato, and if the rest be like him, all will go 
well. — The news of this moment is, that the Russian 
army has orders to advance. 

Mrs. S. unites with me in the most heartfelt regret. 
And I remain, my dear Smith, most faithfully yours. 

If you happen to have brought a copy of Clarke's 
edition of " Queen Mab " for me, I should like very 
well to see it. — I really hardly know what this poem 
is about. I am afraid it is rather rough. 



CVI. 

TO C OLLIER. 

Pisa, September 25, 1821. 
Dear Sir, — It will give me great pleasure if I can 
arrange the affair of Mrs. Shelley's novel with you to 
her and your satisfaction. She has a specific purpose 
in the sum which she instructed me to require. 

The romance is called " Castruccio, Prince of Luc- 
ca," and is founded (not upon the novel of Machiavelli 



304 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

under that name, which substitutes a childish fiction 
for the far more romantic truth of history, but) upon 
the actual story of his life. He was a person who, 
from an exile and an adventurer, after having served 
in the wars of England and Flanders in the reign of 
our Edward the Second, returned to his native city, 
and, liberating it from its tyrants, became himself its 
tyrant, and died in the full splendor of his dominion, 
which he had extended over the half of Tuscany. 
He was a little Napoleon, and, with a dukedom in- 
stead of an empire for his theatre, brought upon the 
same all the passions and the errors of his antitype. 
The chief interest of this romance rests upon Eutha- 
nasia, his betrothed bride, whose love for him is 
only equalled by her enthusiasm for the liberty of the 
republic of Florence, which is in some sort her coun- 
try, and for that of Italy, to which Castruccio is a 
devoted enemy, being an ally of the party of the 
Emperor. This character is a masterpiece ; and the 
keystone of the drama, which is built up with admira- 
ble art, is the conflict between these passions and 
these principles. Euthanasia, the last survivor of a 
noble house, is a feudal countess, and her castle is 
the scene of the exhibition of the knightly manners 
of the time. The character of Beatrice, the prophet- 
ess, can only be done justice to in the very language 
of the author. I know nothing in Walter Scott's 
novels which at all approaches to the beauty and 
sublimity of this — creation, I may almost say, for it 
is perfectly original ; and, although founded upon the 
ideas and manners of the age which is represented, is 
wholly without a similitude in any fiction I ever read. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 305 

Beatrice is in love with Castruccio, and dies ; for the 
romance, although interspersed with much lighter 
matter, is deeply tragic, and the shades darken and 
gather as the catastrophe approaches. All the man- 
ners, customs, opinions, of the age are introduced ; 
the superstitions, the heresies, and the religious per- 
secutions are displayed ; the minutest circumstance 
of Italian manners in that age is not omitted ; and 
the whole seems to me to constitute a living and a 
moving picture of an age almost forgotten. The au- 
thor visited the scenery which she describes in per- 
son ; and one or two of the inferior characters are 
drawn from her own observation of the Italians, for 
the national character shows itself still in certain in- 
stances under the same forms as it wore in the time 
of Dante. 1 

It may be printed on thin paper, like that of this 
letter, and the expense shall fall upon me. Lord 
Byron has his works sent in this manner ; and no 
person who has either fame to lose or money to win 
ought to publish in any other manner. 

By the by, how do I stand with regard to these two 

1 The book here alluded to was ultimately published under 
the title of " Valperga." Mrs. Shelley received ^400 for the 
copyright ; and this sum was generously devoted to the relief 
of Godwin's pecuniary difficulties. In a letter to Mrs. Gis- 
borne, dated June 30, 1821, Mrs. Shelley says that she first 
formed the conception at Marlow ; that this took a more defi- 
nite shape at Naples ; that the work was delayed several 
times ; and that it was " a child of a mighty slow growth." 
It was also, she says, a work of labor, as she had read and 
consulted a great many books. — L. S. 

20 



306 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

great objects of human pursuit? I once sought some- 
thing nobler and better than either ; but I might as 
well have reached at the moon, and now, finding that 
I have grasped the air, I should not be sorry to know 
what substantial sum, especially of the former, is in 
your hands on my account. The gods have made 
the reviewers the almoners of this worldly dross, and 
I think I must write an ode to flatter them to give 
me some, — if I would not that they put me off with a 
bill on posterity, which, when my ghost shall present, 
the answer will be, " No effects." 

Charles the First is conceived, but not born. Un- 
less I am sure of making something good, the play 
will not be written. Pride, that ruined Satan, will 
kill Charles the First, for his midwife would be only 
less than him whom thunder has made greater, I 
am full of great plans ; and, if I should tell you them, 
I should add to the list of these riddles. 

I have not seen Mr. Procter's " Mirandola." Send 
it me in the box, and pray send me the box imme- 
diately. It is of the utmost consequence ; and, as 
you are so obliging as to say you will not neglect 
my commissions, pray send this without delay. \ 
hope it is sent, indeed, and that you have recol- 
lected to send me several copies of " Prometheus," 
" The Revolt of Islam," and "The Cenci," etc., as I 
requested you. Is there any chance of a second 
edition of the Revolt of Islam ? I could materially 
improve that poem on revision. The " Adonais," in 
spite of its mysticism, is the least imperfect of my 
compositions, and, as the image of my regret and 
honor for poor Keats, I wish it to be so. I shall 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 307 

write to you, probably, by next post on the subject 
of that poem, and should have sent the promised 
criticism for the second edition, had I not mislaid, 
and in vain sought for, the volume that contains 
" Hyperion." Pray give me notice against what time 
you want the second part of my " Defence of Poetry." 
I give you this Defence, and you may do what you 
will with it. 

Pray give me an immediate answer about the 
novel. 



CVII. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE. 

Pisa, October 22, 1821. 

My dear Gisborne, — At length the post brings 
a welcome letter from you, and I am pleased to be 
assured of your health and safe arrival. I expect 
with interest and anxiety the intelligence of your 
progress in England, and how far the advantages 
there compensate the loss of Italy. I hear from 
Hunt that he is determined on emigration, and, if I 
thought the letter would arrive in time, I should beg 
you to suggest some advice to him. But you ought to 
be incapable of forgiving me in the fact of depriving 
England of what it must lose when Hunt departs. 

Did I tell you that Lord Byron comes to settle at 
Pisa, and that he has a plan of writing a periodical 
work in connection with Hunt? His house, Madame 
Felichfs is already taken and fitted up for him, and 



308 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

he has been expected every day these six weeks. 
La Guiccioli, who awaits him impatiently, is a very 
pretty, sentimental, innocent Italian, who has sacri- 
ficed an immense fortune for the sake of Lord By- 
ron, and who, if I know anything of my friend, of 
her, and of human nature, will hereafter have plenty 
of leisure and opportunity to repent her rashness. 
Lord Byron is, however, quite cured of his gross 
habits, as far as habits ; the perverse ideas on which 
they were formed are not yet eradicated. 

We have furnished a house at Pisa, and mean to 
make it our head-quarters. I shall get all my books 
out, and intrench myself like a spider in a web. If 
you can assist P. in sending them to Leghorn, you 
would do me an especial favor ; but do not buy me 
Calderon, Faust, or Kant, as H. S. promises to send 
them me from Paris, where I suppose you had not 
time to procure them. Any other books you or 
Henry think would accord with my design, Oilier 
will furnish you with. 

I should like very much to hear what is said of my 
" Adonais," and you would oblige me by cutting out, 
or making Oilier cut out, any respectable criticism 
on it and sending it me ; you know I do not mind a 
crown or two in postage. The " Epipsychidion " is a 
mystery ; as to real flesh and blood, you know that 
I do not deal in those articles ; you might as well go 
to a gin-shop for a leg of mutton, as expect anything 
human or earthly from me. I desired Oilier not to 
circulate this piece except to the o-wctol, and even 
they, it seems, are inclined to approximate me to 
the circle of a servant girl and her sweetheart. But 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 309 

I intend to write a Symposium of my own to set all 
this right. 

I am just finishing a dramatic poem, called Hellas, 
upon the contest now raging in Greece, — a sort of 
imitation of the Persse of ^Eschylus, full of lyrical 
poetry. I try to be what I might have been, but am 
not successful. I find that (I dare say I shall quote 
wrong) 

" Den herrlichsten, den sich der Geist emprangt 
Drangt immer fremd und fremder Stoff sich an." 

The Edinburgh Review lies. Godwin's answer to 
Malthus is victorious and decisive ; and that it should 
not be generally acknowledged as such is full of evi- 
dence of the influence of successful evil and tyranny. 
What Godwin is compared to Plato and Lord Ba- 
con, we well know ; but compared with these miser- 
able sciolists, he is a vulture to a worm. 

I read the Greek dramatists and Plato forever. 
You are right about Antigone ; how sublime a pic- 
ture of a woman ! and what think you of the cho- 
ruses, and especially the lyrical complaints of the 
godlike victim? and the menaces of Tiresias, and 
their rapid fulfilment ? Some of us have, in a prior 
existence, been in love with an Antigone, and that 
makes us find no full content in any mortal tie. As 
to books, I advise you to live near the British Mu- 
seum, and read there. I have read, since I saw you, 
the " Jungfrau von Orleans" of Schiller, — a fine 
play if the fifth act did not fall off. Some Greeks, 
escaped from the defeat in Wallachia, have passed 
through Pisa to re-embark at Leghorn for the Morea ; 



310 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

and the Tuscan Government allowed them, during 
their stay and passage, three lire each per day and 
their lodging; that is good. Remember me and 
Mary most kindly to Mrs. Gisbome and Henry, 
and believe me yours most affectionately. 



CVIIL 

TO C 0LLIER. 

Pisa, November n, 1821. 

Dear Sir, — I send you the drama of " Hellas/' 
relying on your assurance that you will be good 
enough to pay immediate attention to my literary 
requests. What little interest this poem may ever 
excite depends upon its immediate publication ; I 
entreat you, therefore, to have the goodness to send 
the MS. instantly to a printer, and the moment you 
get a proof despatch it to me by the post. The 
whole might be sent at once. Lord Byron has his 
poem sent to him in this manner, and I cannot see 
that the inferiority in the composition of a poem can 
affect the powers of a printer in the matter of despatch, 
etc. If any passages should alarm you in the notes, 
you are at liberty to suppress them ; the poem con- 
tains nothing of a tendency to danger. 

Do not forget my other questions. I am especially 
curious to hear the fate of " Adonais." I confess I 
should be surprised if that poem were born to an im- 
mortality of oblivion. 



PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE Y. 311 

Within a few days I may have to write to you on a 
subject of greater interest. Meanwhile, I rely on 
your kindness for carrying my present request into 
immediate effect. 



CIX. 

TO JOSEPH SEVERN.* 

Pisa, November 29, 1821 
Dear Sir, — I send you the elegy on poor Keats, 
and I wish it were better worth your acceptance. 
You will see, by the preface, that it was written be- 
fore I could obtain any particular account of his last 
moments ; all that 1 still know was communicated 
to me by a friend who had derived his information 
from Colonel Finch ; I have ventured to express, as 
I felt, the respect and admiration which your conduct 
towards him demands. 

In spite of his transcendent genius, Keats never 
was, nor ever will be, a popular poet ; and ,the total 
neglect and obscurity in which the astonishing rem- 
nants of his mind still lie was hardly to be dissipated 
by a writer who, however he may differ from Keats 
in more important qualities, at least resembles him in 
that accidental one, a want of popularity. 

1 Severn was a young English artist, who ministered to 
Keats 's dying hours with the tenderest care. He died in 
Rome in 1879, an d was buried beside Keats in the English 
cemetery. His " Life, Friendship, and Letters, " edited by 
William Sharp, has just been published. 



312 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

I have little hope, therefore, that the poem I send 
you will excite any attention, nor do I feel assured 
that a critical notice of his writings would find a sin- 
gle reader. But for these considerations, it had been 
my intention to have collected the remnants of his 
compositions, and to have published them with a life 
and criticism. — Has he left any poems or writings 
of whatsoever kind, and in whose possession are they? 
Perhaps you would oblige me by information on this 
point. 

Many thanks for the picture you promised me. I 
shall consider it among the most sacred relics of the 
past. 

For my part, I little expected, when I last saw 
Keats at my friend Leigh Hunt's, that I should sur- 
vive him. 

Should you ever pass through Pisa, I hope to have 
the pleasure of seeing you, and of cultivating an ac- 
quaintance into something pleasant, begun under 
such melancholy auspices. 

Accept, my dear sir, the assurances of my sincere 
esteem, and, believe me, your most sincere and faith- 
ful servant. 



CX. 

TO CLAIRE CLAIRMONT. 

Pisa, December n, 1821. 

The Exotic, as you are pleased to call me, droops 
in this frost, — a frost both moral and physical, — a sol- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 313 

itude of the heart. These late days I have been un- 
able to ride, the cold towards sunset is so excessive, 
and my side reminding me that I am mortal. Medwin 
rides almost constantly with Lord Byron, and the 
party sometimes consists of Gamba, Taaffe, Medwin, 
and the Exotic, who, unfortunately belonging to the 
order of Mimosa, thrives ill in so large a society. 
I cannot endure the company of many persons, and 
the society of one is either great pleasure, or great 
pain. 

We expect the Hunts every day, but I suppose the 
tramontana is a great wind at sea, and detains them. 
I think I told you they are to live at Lord Byron's. 

The news of the Greeks continues to be more and 
more glorious. It may be said that the Peloponne- 
sus is entirely free, and Mavrocordato has been act- 
ing a distinguished part, and will probably fill a high 
rank in the magistracy of the infant republic. 



CXI. 

TO CLAIRE CLAIRMONT. 

Pisa, December 31 [1821]. 
I returned from Leghorn on Friday evening, but 
too late for the post, or you would have heard from 
me. The expected person has not arrived, having 
been detained by the tremendous weather. I hope 
soon to have more satisfactory intelligence. Your 
desires on this subject are the object of my anxious 



3M THE BEST LETTERS OF 

thought. . . . T. ie has been frightful here. 

Torrents of rain ha i mo to a greater 

7_ree than has been known for man} 

;: the torrent is inconcr \ reat The wind 

s beyond anything I ever remember, and all the 
shores of the Mediterranean are strewn with wrec 

r damage sustained at Genoa, and the number 
of fires lost, has been immense ; the ships suspected 
of pestilence have been driven from their moorings 
into the town, and everything coming from Genoa 
has been subjected to a strict quarantine. Three 
mails f: iue, and a thousand contra- 

dictor}* rumors are afloat as to the cause. You may 
imagine, and I am iu will share, our anx: 

about poor HunL I wonder, and am shocked at my 
. that I can sleep or enjoy one mo- 
ment of peace until I hear of his safety. I shall, of 
7 to tell you the moment of his arrival. I 
know you will be anxious about these poor people. 
rhe ship in which they sail was spoken with in the 
Biscay and was then quite safe. We have 
in politics ¥ou will have heard of the 
amphibious state of things in France, and the estab- 
lishment of the ultra Ministry by the preponderance 
: ied to that party by the coalition of the Liberals 
i it 7 7 3ree k s are going on evidently, and th 
massacres at Smyrna and Constantinople import 
g : the stability' of the cause. There is no 
such thing as a rebellion m Ireland, or anything that 
looks like it. The people are indeed stung to mad- 
the oppression of the Iris n, and there 

b no soch thing as getting rent aa at the 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELL £ 3*5 

point of the bayonet throughout the southern prov- 
inces. But there are no regular bodies of men in 
opposition to the government, nor have the people 
any leaders. In England all bears for the moment 
the aspect of a sleeping volcano. 



CXII. 

TO T. L. PEACOCK. 

Pisa Jammary [probably i: : :: 
My dear Peacock. — I am still at Pisa, where I 
have at length fitted up some rooms at the top of a 
lofty palace that overlooks the city and the surround 
ing region, and have collected books and plants 
about me. and established myself for some indefinite 
time, which, if 1 read the future, will not be short. 
I wish you to send my books t rirst op- 

portunity, and I expect in them a great augmentation 
of comfort. Lord Byron is established here, an.- 
are constant companions. N : small relief this, after 
the drear}' solitude of the understanding and the 

dnation in which we passed the first years of our 
expatriation, yoked to all sorts of miseries and dis- 
comforts. Of course you have seen his last volume, 
and if you before thought him a great poet wh; 

r opinion now that you have read u Cain " ? - The 
Foscari " and M Sardanapalus n I have not seen ; but as 
they are in the style of his later writings, I doubt not 
they are 7 r.ne. We expect Hunt here ei 



31 6 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

day, and remain in great anxiety on account of the 
heavy gales which he must have encountered at 
Christmas. Lord Byron has fitted up the lower 
apartments of his palace for him, and Hunt will be 
agreeably surprised to find a commodious lodging 
prepared for him after the fatigues and dangers of 
his passage. I have been long idle, and, as far as 
writing goes, despondent ; but I am now engaged on 
" Charles the First," * and a devil of a nut it is to 
crack. 

M. and C, who is not with us just at present, are 
well, and so is our little boy, the image of poor Wil- 
liam. We live, as usual, tranquilly, I get up, or at 
least wake, early ; read and write till two ; dine ; go 
to Lord B.'s, and ride, or play at billiards, as the 
weather permits ; and sacrifice the evening either to 
light books or whoever happens to drop in. Our 
furniture, which is very neat, cost fewer shillings than 
that at Marlow did pounds sterling ; and our win- 
dows are full of plants, which turn the sunny winter 
into spring. My health is better, my cares are 
lighter ; and although nothing will cure the con- 
sumption of my purse, yet it drags on a sort of life in 
death, very like its master, and seems, like Fortuna- 
tus's, always empty, yet never quite exhausted. You 
will have seen my " Adonais," and perhaps my 
" Hellas," and I think, whatever you may think of 
the subject, the composition of the first poem will 
not wholly displease you. I wish I had something 
better to do than furnish this jingling food for the 
hunger of oblivion, called verse, but I have not ; and 
1 The drama that Shelley left as a fragment. 



PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE Y. 3 1 7 

since you give me no encouragement about India, I 
cannot hope to have. 

How is your little star, and the heaven which con- 
tains the milky way in which it glimmers? Adieu. 



CXIII. 

TO HORACE SMITH. 

Pisa, January 25, 1822. 

My dear Smith, — I have delayed this fortnight 
answering your kind letter, because I was in treaty 
for a Calderon, which at last I have succeeded in 
procuring at a tolerably moderate price. All the 
other books you mention I should be glad to have ; 
together with whatever others might fall in your way 
that you might think interesting. 

Will you not think my exactions upon your kind- 
ness interminable if I ask you to execute another 
commission for me ? It is to buy a good pedal harp, 
without great ornament or any appendage that would 
unnecessarily increase the expense, — but good ; nor 
should I object to its being second-hand, if that were 
equally compatible with its being despatched imme- 
diately. Together with the harp I should wish for 
five or six napoleons' worth of harp music, at your 
discretion. I do not know the price of harps at 
Paris, but I suppose that from seventy to eighty 
guineas would cover it, and I trust to your accus- 
tomed kindness, as I want it for a present, to make 



318 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

the immediate advance, as, if I were to delay, the 
grace of my compliment would be lost. Do not take 
much trouble about it, but simply take what you 
find, if you are so exceedingly kind as to oblige me. 
It had better be sent by Marseilles; through some 
merchant, or in any other manner you think best, 
addressed to me at Messrs. Guebhard & Co., mer- 
chants, Leghorn ; the books may be sent together 
with it. 

Our party at Pisa is the same as when I wrote 
last. Lord Byron unites us at a weekly dinner, when 
my nerves are generally shaken to pieces by sitting 
up contemplating the rest making themselves vats of 
claret, etc., till three o'clock in the morning. We 
regret your absence exceedingly, and Lord Byron 
has desired me to convey his best remembrances to 
you. I imagine it is you, and not your brother, for 
whom they are intended. Hunt was expected, and 
Lord Byron had fitted up a part of his palace for his 
accommodation, when we heard that the late violent 
storms had forced him to put back ; and that nothing 
could induce Marianne to put to sea again. This, 
for many reasons that I cannot now explain, has 
produced a chaos of perplexities. . . . The reviews 
and journals, they say, continue to attack me, but I 
value neither the fame they can give nor the fame 
they can take away, therefore blessed be the name 
of the reviews. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 319 

CXIV. 

TO JOHN GISBORNE. 

Pisa, April 10, 1822. 

My dear Gisborne, — I have received Hellas, 
which is prettily printed, and with fewer mistakes 
than any poem I ever published. Am I to thank you 
for the revision of the press ? or who acted as mid- 
wife to this last of my orphans, introducing it to ob- 
livion, and me to my accustomed failure? May the 
cause it celebrates be more fortunate than either ! 
Tell me how you like " Hellas/'and give me your opin- 
ion freely. It was written without much care, and in 
one of those few moments of enthusiasm which now 
seldom visit me, and which make me pay dear for 
their visits. I know what to think of " Adonais," but 
what to think of those who confound it with the many 
bad poems of the day, I know not. 

I have been reading over and over again " Faust/* 
and always with sensations which no other composi- 
tion excites. It deepens the gloom and augments 
the rapidity of ideas, and would therefore seem to me 
an unfit study for any person who is a prey to the re- 
proaches of memory and the delusions of an imagi- 
nation not to be restrained. And yet the pleasure of 
sympathizing with emotions known only to few, al- 
though they derive their sole charm from despair, 
and the scorn of the narrow good we can attain in 
our present state, seems more than to ease the pain 



320 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

which belongs to them. Perhaps all discontent with 
the less (to use a Platonic sophism) supposes the 
sense of a just claim to the greater, and that we ad- 
mirers of Faust are on the right road to Paradise. 
Such a supposition is not more absurd, and is cer- 
tainly less demoniacal, than that of Wordsworth, where 
he says : 

" This earth, 
Which is the world of all of us, and where 
We find our happiness, or not at all." 

Have you read Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso "? 
I find a striking singularity between Faust and this 
drama, and if I were to acknowledge Coleridge's dis- 
tinction, should say Goethe was the greatest philoso- 
pher, and Calderon the greatest poet. Cyprian 
evidently furnished the germ of Faust, as Faust may 
furnish the germ of other poems ; although it is as 
different from it in structure and plan as the acorn 
from the oak. I have — imagine my presumption — 
translated several scenes from both, as the basis of a 
paper for our journal. I am well content with those 
from Calderon, which in fact gave me very little 
trouble ; but those from Faust — I feel how imperfect 
a representation, even with all the license I assume 
to figure to myself how Goethe would have written in 
English, my words convey. No one but Coleridge is 
capable of this work. 

We have seen here a translation of some scenes, 
and indeed the most remarkable ones, accompanying 
those astonishing etchings which have been published 
in England from a German master. It is not bad, — 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 321 

and faithful enough ; but how weak ! how incompe- 
tent to represent Faust ! I have only attempted the 
scenes omitted in this translation, and would send you 
that of the Walpurgisnacht, if I thought Oilier would 
place the postage to my account. What etchings 
those are ! I am never satiated with looking at them ; 
and, I fear, it is the only sort of translation of which 
Faust is susceptible. I never perfectly understood 
the Hartz Mountain scene until I saw the etching ; 
and then Margaret in the summer-house with Faust ! 
The artist makes one envy his happiness that he can 
sketch such things with calmness, which I only dared 
look upon once, and which made my brain swim 
round only to touch the leaf on the opposite side of 
which I knew that it was figured. Whether it is that 
the artist has surpassed Faust, or that the pencil sur- 
passes language in some subjects, I know not, or that 
I am more affected by a visible image, but the etch- 
ing certainly excited me far more than the poem it 
illustrated. Do you remember the fifty-fourth letter 
of the first part of the " Nouvelle Heloise " ? Goe- 
the, in a subsequent scene, evidently had that letter 
in his mind, and this etching is an idealism of it. So 
much for the world of shadows ! 

What think you of Lord Byron's last volume ? In 
my opinion it contains finer poetry than has appeared 
in England since the publication of Paradise Re- 
gained. "Cain" is apocalyptic, — it is a revelation 
not before communicated to man. I write nothing 
but by fits. I have done some of Charles I. ; but al- 
though the poetry succeeded very well, I cannot seize 
on the conception of the subject as a whole, and sel- 

21 



322 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

dom now touch the canvas. You know I don't think 
much about Reviews, nor of the fame they give, nor 
that they take away. It is absurd in any Review to 
criticise "Adonais," and still more to pretend that 
the verses are bad. " Prometheus " was never intended 
for more than five or six persons. 



cxv. 

TO HORACE SMITH. 

Pisa, April n, 1822. 

My dear Smith, — I have, as yet, received neither 
the . . ., nor his metaphysical companions. Time, 
my Lord, has a wallet on his back, and I suppose he 
has bagged them by the way. As he has had a good 
deal of alms for oblivion out of me, I think he might 
as well have favored me this once ; I have, indeed, 
just dropped another mite into his treasury, called 
" Hellas," which I know not how to send to you ; but I 
dare say, some fury of the Hades of authors will bring 
one to Paris. It is a poem written on the Greek 
cause last summer, — a sort of lyrical, dramatic, non- 
descript piece of business. 

Lord Byron has read me one or two letters of 
Moore to him, in which Moore speaks with great kind- 
ness of me ; and of course I cannot but feel flattered 
by the approbation of a man, my inferiority to whom 
I am proud to acknowledge. Amongst other things, 
however, Moore, after giving Lord B. much good ad- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 323 

vice about public opinion, etc., seems to deprecate 
my influence on his mind on the subject of religion, 
and to attribute the tone assumed in "Cain" to my 
suggestions. Moore cautions him against my influ- 
ence on this particular, with the most friendly zeal ; 
and it is plain that his motive springs from a desire 
of benefiting Lord B., without degrading me. 

Where are you? We settle this summer near 
Spezia ; Lord Byron at Leghorn. May not I hope 
to see you, even for a trip in Italy ? I hope your 
wife and little ones are well. Mine grows a fine boy, 
and is quite well. 

I have contrived to get my musical coals at New- 
castle itself. 

My dear Smith, believe me, faithfully yours. 



CXVI. 

TO HORACE SMITH. 

(Versailles.) 

Lerici, May, 1822. 
My dear Smith, — It is some time since I have 
heard from you ; are you still at Versailles ? Do you 
still cling to France, and prefer the arts and conve- 
niences of that over-civilized country to the beautiful 
nature and mighty remains of Italy ? As to me, like 
Anacreon's swallow, I have left my Nile, and have 
taken up my summer quarters here, in a lonely house, 
close by the seaside, surrounded by the soft and sub- 



324 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

lime scenery of the gulf of Spezia. I do not write ; 
I have lived too long near Lord Byron, and the sun 
has extinguished the glowworm ; for I cannot hope, 
with St. John, that " the light came into the world, 
and the world knew it noiP 



CXVII. 

TO HORACE SMITH. 

Lerici, June 2% 1822. 

England appears to be in a desperate condition, 
Ireland still worse ; and no class of those who subsist 
on the public labor will be persuaded that their claims 
on it must be diminished. But the government 
must content itself with less in taxes, the landholder 
must submit to receive less rent, and the fundholder 
a diminished interest, or they will all get nothing. I 
once thought to study these affairs, and write or act in 
them. I am glad that my good genius said, Refrain. 
I see little public virtue, and I foresee that the con- 
test will be one of blood and gold, two elements 
which, however much to my taste in my pockets and 
my veins, I have an objection to out of them. 

Lord Byron continues at Leghorn, and has just re- 
ceived from Genoa a most beautiful little yacht, which 
he caused to be built there. He has written two new 
cantos of " Don Juan," but I have not seen them. I 
have just received a letter from Hunt, who has ar- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 325 

rived at Genoa. As soon as I hear that he has sailed, 
I shall weigh anchor in my little schooner, and give 
him chase to Leghorn, when I must occupy myself in 
some arrangements for him with Lord Byron. Be- 
tween ourselves, I greatly fear that this alliance will 
not succeed ; for I, who could never have been re- 
garded as more than the link of the two thunderbolts, 
cannot now consent to be even that ; and how long 
the alliance may continue, I will not prophesy. Pray 
do not hint my doubts on the subject to any one, or 
they might do harm to Hunt ; and they may be 
groundless. 

I still inhabit this divine bay, reading Spanish dra- 
mas, and sailing, and listening to the most enchanting 
music. We have some friends on a visit to us, and 
my only regret is that the summer must ever pass, or 
that Mary has not the same predilection for this place 
that I have, which would induce me never to shift my 
quarters. Farewell. 



CXVIII. 

TO MRS. E. E. WILLIAMS. 
(Casa Magni.) 

Visa, July 4, 1822. 
You will probably see Williams before I can disen- 
tangle myself from the affairs with which I am now 
surrounded. I return to Leghorn to-night, and shall 
urge him to sail with the first fair wind, without ex- 
pecting me. I have thus the pleasure of contribut- 



326 THE BEST LETTERS OF 

ing to your happiness when deprived of every other, 
and of leaving you no other subject of regret but the 
absence of one scarcely worth regretting. I fear you 
are solitary and melancholy at Villa Magni, and, in the 
intervals of the greater and more serious distress in 
which I am compelled to sympathize here, I figure to 
myself the countenance which had been the source 
of such consolation to me, shadowed by a veil of 
sorrow. 

How soon those hours passed, and how slowly they 
return, to pass so soon again, perhaps forever, in 
which we have lived together so intimately, so hap- 
pily ! Adieu, my dearest friend ! I only write these 
lines for the pleasure of tracing what will meet your 
eyes. Mary will tell you all the news. 



CXIX. 

TO MARY SHELLEY. 

Visa, July 4, 1822. 
My dearest Mary, — I have received both your 
letters, and shall attend to the instructions they con- 
vey. I did not think of buying the Bolivar ; Lord B. 
wishes to sell her, but I imagine would prefer ready 
money. I have as yet made no inquiries about houses 
near Pugnano, — I have no moment of time to spare 
from Hunt's affairs ; I am detained unwillingly here, 
and you will probably see Williams in the boat before 
me, — but that will be decided to-morrow. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 327 

Things are in the worst possible situation with re- 
spect to poor Hunt. 1 find Marianne in a desperate 
state of health, and on our arrival at Pisa sent for 
Vacca. He decides that her case is hopeless, and 
that, although it will be lingering, must inevitably end 
fatally. This decision he thought proper to commu- 
nicate to Hunt; indicating at the same time, with 
great judgment and precision, the treatment neces- 
sary to be observed for availing himself of the chance 
of his being deceived. This intelligence has extin- 
guished the last spark of poor Hunt's spirits, low 
enough before. The children are well, and much 
improved. 

Lord Byron is at this moment on the point of 
leaving Tuscany. The Gambas have been exiled, 
and he declares his intention of following their for- 
tunes. His first idea was to sail to America, which 
was changed to Switzerland, then to Genoa, and last 
to Lucca. Everybody is in despair, and everything 
in confusion. Trelawny was on the point of sailing 
to Genoa for the purpose of transporting the Bolivar 
overland to the Lake of Geneva, and had already 
whispered in my ear his desire that I should not in- 
fluence Lord Byron against this terrestrial navigation. 
He next received orders to weigh anchor and set 
sail for Lerici. He is now without instructions, moody 
and disappointed. But it is the worst for poor Hunt, 
unless the present storm should blow over. He 
places his whole dependence upon the scheme of a 
journal, for which every arrangement has been made. 
Lord Byron must of course furnish the requisite funds 
at present, as I cannot ; but he seems inclined to de- 



328 THE BEST LETTERS OF SHELLEY. 

part without the necessary explanations and arrange- 
ments due to such a situation as Hunt's. These, in 
spite of delicacy, I must procure ; he offers him the 
copyright of " The Vision of Judgment " for the first 
number. This offer, if sincere, is more than enough 
to set up the journal, and, if sincere, will set every- 
thing right. 

How are you, my best Mary? Write especially 
how is your health and how your spirits are, and 
whether you are not more reconciled to staying at 
Lerici, at least during the summer. 

You have no idea how I am hurried and occupied ; 
I have not a moment's leisure, but will write by next 
post. 

Ever, dearest Mary, yours affectionately. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
Cor Cordium. 

Natus IV. Aug. MDCCXCII. 
ObiitVIII. Jul. MDCCCXXII. 

" Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange." 



Inscription on Shelley's Tomb in Rome. 



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